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History of Jerusalem. 



Containing and Treating of 



Traces of Pre-Ilistoric People ; Aborii^inal 
Occupation ; Geological Outlines ; Indian 
Villages and Trails ; Early Settlements 
and Settlers; Organization of the Towti- 
ship : Topographical Features ; Pioneer 
Sketches ; Land Tracts ; Early Industries; 
Red Jacket ; Coates Kinney ; Abandoned 
Villages ; Gu-ya-no-ga Valley ; Springs ; 
Streams ; Saw-MiZIs ; Schools ; Recession 
of Lake Keufea ; The Big Gully ; Various 
Notes ; Electric Raihray ; Post Offices ; 
Pioneer Incidaits and Events; Asa Brown; 
and many Other Matters bridging the 
chasm of time from primal evidences of 
Man, unknown to the Indian, till the 
Race with ax and plow subdued the wil- 
derness, erected the Log Cabin, and 
speedily foutided the first fenoii'n Civili- 
zation upon the soil of Jerusalem. 



BY 



MILES A. DAVIS. 



1912 






Entered according to act of Congress in the year 1912, by 

MILES A. DAVIS, 

In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 



©C[.A3.301J7 



IN THE FOREGROUND. 

More than ten years ago an effort was made to ascertain the extent 
of encouragement which the publication of a History of Jerusalem 
would receive. Responses were sufficiently favoring so that plans 
were entered into for issuing the work. While they were in progress, 
correspondence and trade papers revealed the fact that prices on 
paper, binding, and all that entered into the cost of production had 
advanced 40 to 60 per centum above rates existing when the pre- 
liminary canvass was made. It was therefore deemed inexpedient to 
bring out the work till some later time. During these intervening 
years much new and valuable material has been developed which 
has been prepared and added to the original work, more than doubling 
the size of the volume. 

It is hoped and believed by the writer that this form of preserva- 
tion of many important facts will be more fully appreciated as time 
goes on. The place of one's nativity naturally appeals to the loyalty 
and pride of the average citizen. The first home realization of life 
leaves a lasting impress rarely effaced in subsequent years. While it is 
co-nfessedly impossible to obtain all that may be anticipated or con- 
siderately set forth in this work, it is well to bear in mind that there 
must be a limit to the volume; also, that however conscientious its 
preparation, some facts would elude all memory and research. There 
is an ever present tendency in human affairs toward vanishment into 
the Lethean stream of forgetfulness. 

Jerusalem is remarkably rich in historic material, a considerable 
proportion of which is of more than local moment. Full treatment 
could not be compassed in a single volume. It is with regret that 
much of such matter has to be omitted. 

It is with profound pleasure that the writer acknowledges his 
obligations to Mr. H. C. Earles, editor of the Penn Yan Democrat, for 
placing the matter of this work in type and printing it. 

Grateful thanks are due Dr. James C. Wightman for his most 
kindly and efficient aid and encouragement and in enlisting the inter- 
est of many good people in Jerusalem and elsewhere in this produc- 
tion. 

It was originally contemplated embodying in this work all 
family lines, wholly or partly within the township of Jerusalem; but 
it was found inexpedient to take up so large a portion of the volume 
to the exclusion or subordination of other essentially relevant fea- 
tures. Besides, as now, after the lapse of about three generations 
beyond the ancestral pioneer period, it would probably afford no 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 



special satisfaction to the widely scattered descendants, many of 
v/hom would never see the printed record. Genealogy seems properly 
a division or subject by itself. Furthermore, the groundwork of fam- 
ily history, in this township, was so fully set forth in Stafford C. 
Cleveland's "History of Yates County," that it seems in nowise essen- 
tial to traverse the same ground over again. 

Reverting to primal ownership of the soil of Jerusalem, it cannot 
logically be claimed that present ownership holds title, except the 
shadowy one, vaguely obtained, through the supplanting of Aboriginal 
possession. The Indian title is precedent, farther back than history. 
Neither pride, popularity, nor prestige can extinguish the light of 
the council-fire that burned through centuries of time and still glows 
upon the unwritten scroll of reason and unrecorded narrations in the 
equity of duration. Treaties may obliterate titles, but they can-not 
erase the lines of the ages. Mankind perpetually rotates, but the 
stars and the mountains abide. 

In some points of view the present is a continual evolution. The 
links, of which we are, individually, but the momentary one in view, 
in the endless chain of time are unfolded one by one, neither end of 
which mortal eyes behold. The past is a succession of events which 
we can at best but inadequately imagine or dimly perceive in the 
records once made by hands that are now dust, or handed down 
through the silent ear-drums of vanished generations. The present 
is a perpetual outpushing or unfolding of the parchment of the past 
that rolls up with every sunset in a continually closed circle as rapid- 
ly behind as it is spread out before us. In the cycles of the ages 
there is no pause. 

The individual is the product of his or her predecessors, how- ; 

ever differentiated by conditions or environments or to whatever I 

tendencies subjected. Primogeniture never wholly yields tihe line I 

in the perpetuation of the human species. All observation is concur- 
rent that only in the total obliteration of a type of life is there a , i 
failure in the reproduction of some distinguishing physical traits of i 
similarity which are still unlike any one of the interminable factors | 
in perpetuation. Largely, in life, every generation is indissolubly f 
identified with a previous one. Though man lives not in the past, he ^ 
cannot, if he would, escape or forego its potential influence or the 
fiat of inheritance, MILES A. DAVIS. i 

EVIDENCES OF PREHISTORIC PEOPLE. 

It is by no means conjectural or a figment of imagination that a 
race or races of people inhabited what is now Jerusalem previous to 
the Aboriginal Men. To what classification in anthropology they 
should be assigned,, canmot be stated, as the only evidences of their 
existence lies in various works of art concealed in the great book of 
the earth, of which here and there a torn fragment of leaf is found. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 5 

Who built the "Old Fort" in Sherman's Hollow, and for what 
purpose? What people constructed the curious earthwork on Bluff 
Point, and what could it have been made for? No one living, 
reasoning from facts brought to light, can answer these questions 
conclusively or with any degree of certainty which leaves no shadow 
of doubt. 

That the "Old Fort" of Sherman's Hollow, whose history "no 
man knoweth." was constructed by a highly civilized people inhabit- 
ing this country long before the Red Man, is a logical inference 
from certain facts which will be given in this chapter. The Indians 
had no knowledge of who built it, or for what purpose, as they have 
stated to the writer, who has interrogated some of the old Senecas 
in other localities. Bartleson Sherman asked some of the Indians 
who were living in this locality in an early time, who built it, and for 
what purpose. They knew nothing about it. Some nations of Indians 
were known to erect fortifications as a place of rendezvous and van- 
tage ground against pressing enemies, but they were generally made 
by falling trees in such a manner as to form a barricade through 
which a pursuing enemy could not pass without attracting the atten- 
tion of those in the enclosure, who were thereby afforded an op- 
portunity to dispose of the assailants. 

The situation of this ancient fortification seems to indicate that 
it was constructed for some other purpose than defense in war. There 
may have been a two-fold object the builders had in view. The ele- 
vated lands to the east would evidently have afforded besiegers a 
chance to hurl destructive missiles into the "fort" with more or less 
deadly effect, while, if it had been constructed solely as a stronghold 
of defense, the site would naturally have been chosen overlooking 
the surroundings in every direction. Yet why the fortification should 
have been erected for other purposes than are involved in war, does 
not seem clear. The earliest settlers relate that there was a deep 
trench all the way around the outside of the work, a-nd that large 
timbers were placed on the embankment, fitted firmly together, and 
where the timbers were joined the whole enclosure was strongly 
palisaded with heavy posts. As in the case of all fortified enclosures 
intended for permanency, an excellent and never-failing spring of 
water was made accessible to those within, and in this instance it was 
at the foot of a steep bank, naturally protected, on the west side. 
The spring is still there. The late Joseph N. Davis, who passed away 
in 1890, remembered when very large trees were growing in the bot- 
tom of the trench, then some four or five feet below the level of the 
ground. The trench was filled up and leveled down long ago, and 
there is no distinct trace of it now. 

Many curious works of art have been found on the site of this 
ancient fortification (if such it was) w;hich plainly belong to a period 
of peace and actual civilization. Many years ago — during the pioneer 



6 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

period — an iron box was unearthed upon the site by a man by the 
name of Weston who had been digging there during a number of 
n/ghts. It was in the earliest days of spring, and on the night of the 
find there was a fall of six inches or more of snow. 'He was on the 
grcund with a yoke of oxen and an ox sled, and the next day the 
tracks of the sled were observed by some who visited the loca- 
tion, and they stated that the sled runners cut down through the 
snow into the softened surface of the earth as though he must have 
gone out with a heavy load. Some declared they saw the spot where 
the iron box was taken out. That it contained a considerable amount 
of coined money is a reasonable inference from the well attested 
fact that he went right on out of the country hereabouts, and, though 
a poor man, unable to buy any land, while here, he went away into 
another state, where he immediately purchased a large tract which he 
paid for in coined money at the time of purchase. Civilized people 
only are producers or users of coined money. This event was fully 
related to the writer by an early pioneer of Jerusalem, in 1873, whose 
word was unquestioned; and it was also related to the writer by a 
reliable resident of the locality. 

Specimens of ancient pottery have been found at various times 
en the site, which seems to indicate that the builders or occupants 
of this fortification, or whatever it was, were a civilized race with a 
curious knowledge of arts quite different from any known of the 
Indians. 

Once in walking over the ground the late Joseph N. Davis found 
a perfectly shaped stone pipe, which was evidently the work of the 
artisans of the stone age. 

In 1880, Dr. Samuel H. Wright, A. M., a gentleman of eminent 
scientific attainments in| nearly all branches of knowledge, made a 
careful survey of the plot and site of this ancient work, and the fol- 
lowing is his published report thereon: 

ABORIGINAL WORKS. 

A'a Aboriginal earthwork in Jerusalem known as the "Old Fort," 
we find by well recognized works and pointed out by the oldest in- 
habitants of ihe locality, is an ellipse having 545 feet transverse dia- 
meter from north to south and 485 conjugate diiameter from east to 
west. The outside was a raised earthwork, having twelve gateways 
nearly equally distributed around, the narrower being eight feet wide 
and alternating with t|he wider ones about fourteen feet wide. A 
deep, wide trench ran around the work. The enclosure contained 
four and three-fourtih acres, and there are two dwelling houses and 
a school house on this ground. (Later< a church has been erected 
upon the site.) 

A large opening in the enclosure about fifty feet east of the 
sppingj was seventy feet wide, and in front or west of which is 
a steep bank of coarse gravel, into wihich a bay has been dug out by 
a large spring which is about eight to ten feet below the edge of the 
bank. The land east and north of the spring is a series of extensive 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 7 

sand banks, the Aboriginal enclosure itself being a low bank and ris- 
ing everywhere gradually to the center. 

We found fragments of Indian pottery in a large quantity of old 
ashes near by, in which was also found recently, by the owner of the 
land, a broken bowl of a pipe made of baked clay. A French gun 
lock was also found. 

In the recollection of many persons these grounds were covered 
with a dense forest of pine^, and an old stump of an oak nearly four 
feet in diameter now stands on the edge of the embankment. 

Many years ago a Seneca chief told Bartleson Sherman that his 
Nation lenew nothing of the origin of the work, and that it was there 
when his people first knew of this land. 

We surveyed and mapped this work for the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion on the 28th of July, 1880. SAMUEL HART WRIGHT. 

A copper ax was found by James A. Belknap a number of years 
ago while pulling stumps on the Ellsworth estate in the Guyanoga 
Valley near Branchport. A very large pine stump had been pulled 
which was about four feet in diameter. He counted the grains of 
the stump at the top, and found that they numbered 250, which shows 
that the tree must have been that number of years old when cut. It 
took four yoke of oxen to turn it over after it was pulled. Under this 
stump, after it was hauled out, was found the copper ax, which was 
about four inches in length of blade and tapered wider to the edge. 
There was no place for a handle. He thought it might have been 
broken off at the eye, or that it was attached with withes to a handle. 
The ax was long and narrow and somewhat curved. What people 
made or used such an implement 250 years or more before the life 
of the tree began? 

On the Ellsworth place was also fou-nd a grave of primitive origin, 
as related by Daniel Lynn to the writer. It was also found under 
a pine stump. The stump was about a foot and a half in diameter. 
The burial place was laid up with round burnt sandstone, laid regu- 
larly on top of each other in most instances. Human bones, a skull, 
and one arm bone were found in it, demonstrating that it was a burial 
place. This was found in 1869. 'From the full account of it as re- 
lated, it was evidently a mausoleum of some people long before the 
Red Men occupied this region. 

The late Dwight Dickinson found a curious stone near his house 
a few years ago, and placed it in the wall under his barn for safe 
keeping. The stone had several parallel grooves cut in the smooth 
surface, about one inch in depth and extending diagonally across it. 
The stone was afterward taken out of the wall and conveyed away 
by some relic hunter. What use was made of thisi curiously carved 
stone by the people of the Stone Age, is a question the text-booka 
have not disclosed in the researches of the writer. It seems reason- 
able to suppose, from the regularity of the grooves, that they were 
made thus in evenly shaping or edging some of their stone imple- 
ments. 

Up the Guyanoga Valley on the east side, near the Potter line, on 



8 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

the premises of Henry Hyatt, a rare stone relic was found a few 
years ago. It was evidently a stone cover to a crock or kettle, the 
cover of stone plainly having been shaped out of a piece of native 
rock. It was beveled from the center to an edge at the outer rim all 
around, and had an iron handle in the center of the cover projecting 
about an inch and a half above the surface and bent so as to clinch on 
the opposite side. This stone cover is smoothly polished, and by careful 
measurement the writer found that from the little more than half of 
it which was obtained by the finder, the cover must have been about 
ten inches in width across it, and it was about an inch thick, at the 
center. Whatever people made it had some knowledge and use of 
iron as well as stone. The writer has satisfactory ground work for 
the conclusion he jhas reached that the Indians made none of the 
stone arrow heads, axes or other implements attributed to their work- 
manship. These numerous implements found here and there in the 
earth, belonged to the people of the Stone Age, and were made by 
them. Afterward they were found and used by the Red Men all over 
the country. Has any w^ite man ever seen an Indian making one of 
those stone arrowheads? They shaped their arrows and used these 
smooth, sharp and pointed fiint arrow heads in them. But what proof 
is there that they ever made them? It is not the province of this 
work to attempt to offer decisive evidence concerning debatable sub- 
jects, or to formulate technical or ingenious t,heorems as to the prob- 
able race of people designated as belonging to the Stone Age, wheth- 
er of the New or Old, or to review the uses to which their discovered 
works of art were applied in that indefinitely long period covering 
the American continent before there was any record written or oral, 
of human intelligence or art. It may be well to add, however, that 
some years after the writer came to the conclusion stated in refer- 
ence to the making of flint arrow heads and other stone implements, 
he found his views fully corroborated by an emiinent Chippewa In- 
dian, Dr. Jones, of Canada, with whom the writer conversed several 
hours at his residence in Hagersville. Later, Dr. Eastman, of South 
Dakota, a full-blooded Sioux Indian in the employ of the government 
among the Indians of the West and Northwest, who is a college grad- 
uate and well versed dn all Indian lore, made a public statement over 
his signature that the Indians never made the arrowheads, &c., at- 
tributed to them. 

Of object lessons, locally, in the fascinating study of stone relics 
of a former age, Frank Botsford, of Guyanoga Valley, and William 
Dinehart, of Sherman's Hollow, have each an interesting collection. 

Stone implements of various kinds have been found here and 
there in the soil of Jerusalem, and the most prolific field has been 
that of Dr. James C. Wightman, at Branchport, which was the site 
of an Indian village. Arrowheads, pestles, mortars, pipes, skinning 
knives, smoothing stones, sinkers, crockery and various other ar- 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 9 

tides have been found there. The late Lynham J. Beddoe stated to 
the doctor that in his boyhood days and through his life parties came 
every year from places far and near, with baskets to carry home their 
easy finds of stone relics of almost every kind, and since Dr. Wight- 
man has been in possession of the place, the Reliquarian societies 
have sent people to these grounds from Buffalo, New York, Utica, 
Syracuse, Seneca Falls, Geneva, Prattsburg, Pulteney, Penn Yan, 
Hammondsport and other places, who have been successful in secur- 
ing relics. 

It was generally supposed for a number of years that there was 
an ancient fort on Bluff Point, and some of the early settlers alluded 
to it as such. Pertaining to that singular earthwork, Dr. Samuel H. 
Wright, A. M., in a communicaljion to the writer of this volume, under 
date of March 28, 1898, says: "It is the strangest worki known in 
anthropology. Nothing Icke it." The learned doctor made a thorough 
and careful inspection of the work, and his report thereon, with a 
diagram was published in the 35th annual report on the New York 
State Museum of Natural History, and is as follows: 

ABORIGINAL WORK ON BLUFF POINT. 

The accompanying diagram represents an ancient work in the 
town of Jerusalem, on Bluff Point, in lots numbers 5 and 6, on the 
farm of Harris Cole (formerly Howland Hemphill). 

Bluff Point is a high and sterile region, lying between the two 
arms of Lake Keuka, its ridge being about 800 feet above the lake. 

This Aboriginal work occupies about seven acres of land, extend- 
ing from the highway on the top of the ridge westward or toward 
the west arm' of the lake, having a slight descent westward. The 
sedimentary shales and flags of the Portage group are only one or 
two feet below the surface. 

The curious structure consists of (what I may call for the want 
of a better term) graded ways, of from three to eight feet wide and 
now about one foot high, with a vast number of large, flat stones set 
in the ground edgewise on each side of the ways, the stones leaning 
toward the middle of the ways. The indications are that these grad- 
ed ways have never been over two feet high. All the areas between 
these ways are depressions in which water remains till evaporated, 
the nearness of the rock below often being only twelve or fourteen 
inches, preventing its absorption. These areas, or many of them, 
contain bogs of carex and some grass, but in the summer are dry and 
afford a fair pasturage. The dirt used to make the ways was taken 
from these areas, causing the depressions, and the rock beneath was 
no doubt at that time completely laid bare and furnished the flat 
stones that are set in on each side of the graded ways. 

All that portion of the work in lot number six ha^ never been 
plowed, and the ways are easily traced w!hen the grass has been re- 
moved. Those lying in lot number five have been destroyed, but are 
traced from the quantity of small fragments of stones still on the 
surface. 

I have not been able to find any relics in this work, which is one 
of the strangest structures in the state. I find nothing similar to it, 
figured in any work on archaeology. 



10 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

No trees are in the structure except a few young ones. There Is 
no living spring of water nearer than a mile at the southwest. 

The purpose for which this structure was made, and the race who 
built It, are matters of conjecture. Had Interments been made In the 
ways, the fact would have been disclosed by the destruction of all 
that portion In lot number five. But none of the oldest Inhabitants 
of the region have ever seen any relics of bones there. The soil has 
not depth enough anywhere In the seven acres (being seldom more 
than eighteen Inches deep) to allow of human Interments. 

Its rectilineal divisions, some of which are over five hundred feet 
long, are made with almost mathematlc3.1 accuracy, and Indicate a 
skill we can hardly attribute to the Red Men. Tlbls work may be- 
long to the age of the Mound Builders and be one of the many cur^ 
lous structures of that people. 

A (Skeleton was exhumed twenty feet below the earth's surface 
recently, inx Wayne County, by workmen on the barge canal, near the 
village of Clyde, which a learned archaeologist, after careful and 
thorough examination, announced as that of a human being of great 
antiquity, long before there was any history of man, and from faunal- 
life Indications In the soil, the conclusion was deducted that the re- 
mains belonged to the Mesozolc period of geological sequence. 

INDIAN OCCUPATION. 

Less than half a century previous to the discovery of the Ameri- 
can contlne*nt, the territory now comprising the greater portion of the 
State of New York was in the throes of an Aboriginal Revolution. 
The Algonquin Nation held sway over a large proportion of the 
country east of the Allegany Mountains to the borders of New Eng- 
land. The possessdon of much of their territory was contested by the 
then unorganized but warlike Iroquois who were driven from their 
river holdings by the Algonqulns, and in turn were pressing in upon 
the latter's domain from several points of compass. Before the colo- 
nial settlements effected any clearings in the forests the indomitar 
ble Iroquois through conquests acquired a large proportion of the 
lands of the Empire State, The famous League of confederation 
entered ftito by the Six Nations, ushered into existence the first pure 
Republic ever known among a pagan people. It is a wonder to 
students of Indian history howi so firm yet elastic a compact could be 
made by unlettered people, and comprising at least six dlfferefnt 
dialects, neither one of the Six Nations of the Iroquois understandlfng 
the language spoken by either of the others. 

In the founding of the Iroquois Republic the Mohawks pitched 
their wigwams on the east and were the keepers of the eastern door 
of the Long House. In Iroquolan, the Mohawks were Qa-ne-a-go-o-no, 
while^ in their own dialect they were Poe-way-at». West of the 
Mohawks were the Oneidas, On-a-yote-ka, or "stone people." The 
%iext Nation west was the Onondagas, Seuh-no-keh-te, "bearing the 
names." They occupied the center of the Republic, and on tlheir 
lands the Long House was loc3,ted, and there all the Nations convened 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 11 

to vote ota every matter of common Interest, whether of war or peace. 
Between Owasco and Seneca Lakes was the country of the Cayugas, 
Gue-a-gweh-'o-no, "those at the mucky land." The keepers of the 
western gate were the Senecas, Nun-da-wa-o-no, or Ga-nun-da-wah, 
"the great hill people," who, according to a tradition had their origin 
on the east side of Canandalgua Lake in the town of Middlesex. About 
the year 1712 the Tuscaroras, Dus-gu-o-weh, united with the Five 
Nations, and thenceforth the Iroquois were known as the Six Nations. 
They came from the western part of North Carolina. 

It should not be supposed that the Six Nations of a common 
race, yet speaking different dialects, dwelt together In brotherly love 
from the first. They were wa4*riors by nature, and centuries of time 
had not burned out the fire of conquest within. The Senecas and 
Cayugas had many conflicts and were continually hostile to each 
other. Oneldas and Mohawks were frequently at war. Desultory 
bands fought each other wherever they met. Surrounding Indian 
Nations began to dig up the tomahawk. The MiBcees and Mohicans 
of the Hudson River regdcn, the wandering Algonquins along the St. 
Lawrence River amd about Lake Ontario, and west of them the 
Hurons about Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay, the Erie or Cat Nar 
tion, between tfhe Genesee and Niagara Rivers, who fought the Sene- 
cas long and effectually, and lastly the Mlnquas, Susquehamnocks, or 
Andastez, on the south, were threatening a coil of warfare about the 
Iroquois which plainly meant extermination. They were all enemies 
of the Five Nations, and their attacks began to weaken the unorgan- 
ized and single Nations fighting separately. Perceiving their com 
mon danger, the Five Nations held a council and made a compact or 
united confederation whereby they became at peace with each other 
and joined i«n common cause against all their foes. It was a master- 
ly stroke of statemanship for an unlettered people, comparable to 
that of the founders of our Great Republic upward of two hundred 
years later. 

Some of the descenda'nts of the Iroquois to this day cherish a 
shadowy tradition of a deity suggesting the momentous occasion, 
coming to them in his white canoe at the council-fire and portraying 
the never-ending League and the^ ascending in the white canoe out 
of their astonished sight while delightful music from invisible choirs 
played about them. They relate that he then took up his place in 
Ha-wen-ne-yu, or the Iroquois paradise. 

This sagaciously devised and faithfully maintained article of 
unwritten confederation was a masterly consummation and was 
fraught with the greatest consequences to their immediate and future 
welfare. They speedily rose to eminence and power. All questions 
concerning the confederation or the Five Nations, the negotiation of 
treaties, the determination of war, andl all other considerations of 
common interest were decided by the League Council convened at 



12 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Onondaga. The League was composed of the sachems from each of 
the Five Nations. The Mohawks atnd Oneidas were each represented 
by nine, the Cayugas ten, the Senecas eigfht, and the Onondagas 
fourteen. Fifty sachems, sag-ms, therefore represented the great 
League of the Iroquois. On all occasions of the coumcil of the 
League were present many warriors, squaws, and younger ones — as 
many as chose to make the journey — and any one of the Nations 
was at liberty to attend. The sachems gathered about the council 
fire in a dignified manner becoming a people who had "no king or 
ruling potentate, and each sachem had equal rights, while o^ie vote 
was sovereign to each Nation in decidi'ng questions of state. 

In studying the system of government thus instituted by the 
Iroquois, it is interesting and important to "note how firmly grounded 
was the whole structure in the method of rotation in sachemships, 
and especially in the tribal relationship established throughout. Each 
Nation was divided into eight tribes, or cla'as, and in two divisions. 
Each tribe was given a totem or name corresponding to some animal 
well known to all. The first division consisted of the Wolf, Bear, 
Beaver, and Turtle tribes, and the seccnd was the Snipe, Heron, 
Deer, and Hawk. As if to cement the League in bonds of blood, 
each tribe was considered as akin to the corresponding one in any 
one of the other Nations. 

The Iroquois League origjinated with the Onondagas, and was 
effected on the east bank of Onondaga Creek. The chiefs and 
sachems soon perceived that the compact was in all ways decidedly 
advamtageous. A fraternal spirit was created and maintained 
among themselves, and thereby they became a power upon the war- 
path. Realizing their combined strength tlheir first move was against 
their old enemies, the Adirondacks, whom they virtually exterminated. 
Surrounding Nations began to feel the force of the Iroquois. Their 
tcmahawk was brandished upon the shores of Lake Superior, their 
warlike measures were carried into New England and their arrows 
whizzed along the valley of the Father of Waters. 

They conquered the Hurons, Eries, Andastez, Chananons, Illinois, 
Miamies, Algonquins, Delawares, Shawanees, Susquehan'nocks, Nanti- 
cokes, Una,mis, and even the Carnise Indians Jn their sea-girt home 
on Long Isla'nd found no protection against their attacks. Their 
military operations were carried on as far north as Hudson's Bay, 
while tjhe Mississippi River did not bound the western limits of their 
aggression. 

The Senecas were the greatest warriors, and the most aggressive, 
a*nd many of the most noted and eminent Indians of which there is 
any account were of Seneca origin. Their lands extended to the east 
as far as Sodus Bay and Seneca, Lake, south to the Chemung River, 
north to Lake Ontario, generally, a^d west as far as the caprices of 
warfare would permit, the general boundary being the Genesee River. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 13 

Eventually, when they overcame the Eries, the Niagara River was 
virtually their western frontier. Their country, broadly speaki-ng, had 
an area of more than two millions and a half acres of wondrously 
variegated and generally fertile land, abounding with fine streams 
and be&utiful lakes. It was a veritable earthly paradise for the 
hunter, with magnificent forests, hills and valleys delightful to be- 
hold. In all this enchanting realm there were in those days of palmy 
solitudes about ten thousand I-ndians. Now, this region of the Senecas 
is peopled by half a million or more. 

The Indians believe that they were Ongwe Honwe, the first real 
men, and they are dumb when persuaded to reveal any knowledge 
of any people preceding them. 

One hundred and fifty years ago the Semeca Indians were the 
sole occupants of this region. They were foremost in war and first 
at the council. About Seneca, Canandaigua, and Lake Keuka were 
their most famous hunting grounds. The circling smoke arose from 
many an Indian village, and the wilderness was dotted with their 
wigwams. The hunter bounded ihrough the forest in pursuit of deer 
and moose; beavers and martins were in abundance; salmon smoked 
at every camp-fire; the waters of Lake Keuka were parted by the 
birch canoe, and the dripping oar of the Seneca glistened in the sun- 
light. This was the Indian Eden. 

The unfortunate allegiance of the Six Nations generally, and of 
tjhe Senecas in particular, to the British crown during the Colonial 
struggle, brought their dream to a close. The savage Sa-sa-kwan of 
the warrior subsided at the close of the Revolutionary War, and 
scarcely a decade passed ere the smoke of the wigwam vanished. 
The smouldering camp-fire of the Seneca had scarcely turned to 
ashes before clearings were made, log cabins erected, and fields of 
corn planted. 

An Indian family lived several years after the first settlements 
of white people, at the north end of the North Branch of Lake Keu- 
ka, near the head of the lake. Their names were Goodbody. The 
family was known to consist of only an old Indiafn and his squaw, 
the younger members, if there were any, having doubtless moved 
away years before. 

The last Indian fannily who left Jerusalem, of which any 
account has been given, was in 1838, as stated to the writer by the 
late Lawson Rogers. The name of the Indian in our language was 
Hiram Cabiff, and he with his family lived on Bluff Point on the 
Henry Kenyoun place, near the lake. The Indian had a wife 
(squaw) and two sons, Tim and Grove. They lived in a log house 
built by themselves. The Indian children of this family attended 
school in the log school house on the west side of the road near the 
James Stever place, which was the first one erected on Bluff Point. 
After the family moved away the sons came back a few years later 



14 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

to visit among the white people on Bluff Point, with all of whom 
t(hey were on very friendly terms^ as were also their father and 
mother at all times. Lawson Rogers, who was the oldest person 
born and living on Bluff Point wh©a he made these statements to 
the writer, knew those Indians well, and stated that they were all 
as friendly and peaceable as amy white people he ever knew. They 
frequently came to visit hjls mother, whose maiden name was Jemi- 
ma Berry, and who was born on the Holland Purchase. The Indian 
family referred to, Ihunted and fished a great deal, in accordance with 
the natural tendencies of their race. The sons had some education 
obtained at the common school referred to. 

Thus a great Nation who were the primal possessors of all this 
country, vanished. Land titles inherited through countless genera- 
tions by the Sons of the Forest were virtually extinguished in the 
conquest through Colonial plantation. Nearly all of tjhis township 
was heavily timbered in its original state. When Daniel Guernsey 
made his way through the thick woods everywhere abounding, in 
1790, to make the first survey, no one could then have conjectured 
the evolution a century of time would bring about. Wild beasts and 
a wild people were the denizens of the wilderness. 

Slowly the smoke from the chimneys of the log habitations of 
the supplanting race began to curl upward through the treertops. 
Clearings revealed the advance agents of a contin^tal revolution, 
In a double sense, planting the seeds of a new heavefn and a new 
earth. Wigwam and tepee, tomahawk and bow and arrow, faded In 
the glare of the fire-place and were overshadowed by the shingle roof 
of the pale-face. The early settlers followed the trails a*nd widened 
them into roadways. The Red Man pitched his tent farther on in the 
forest toward the setting sun, 

PRECEDING THE SETTLEMENTS. 

For about 160 years before the Revolutionary War, the French 
claimed priority and pre-emption of the lands of Western New York. 
They wisely allied some of the most powerful of the Western tribes 
of Indians with themselves. For a long time they held the reins of 
territorial acquisition to an extent that indicated eventually a nationa' 
Bway over a large portion of country. But the final hostility of the 
Iroquois and the military prowess of Great Britain dispelled the 
French, scattered their forces, and dissipated their dreams of empire 
hi the Paradise of the Genesee and Lake Country. 

In so far as the writer has been able to examine the Jesuit 
Relations, there appears no direct allusion to the French Mission- 
aries ever having established a mission within the boundaries of 
Jerusalem. Yet it is possible that they had a temporary station 
somewhere within this township. There is a vague sort of tradition 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 15 

that at one time they had a mission In Sherman's Hollow; but It 
lacks posltlveness, either In their statements or verification other- 
wise. 

The Jesuits were undoubtedly the first white people who pene- 
trated the wilderness of the Red Man, of which there seems to be any 
authentic record. The tolls, hardships, and dangers undergone by 
them to plant the germs of tholr religious faith among a Pagan 
people, thousands of miles across the sea from civilization, are among 
the most remarkable Instances of zealous and heroic devotion to 
conception of duty ever self-imposed upon man. 

The Jesuits^ established a number of missions at considerable 
distance apart in the domain of the Iroquois. There are few external 
evidences of the existence of their missions upon or about the lo- 
calities where they were established, except their Relations. It Is 
a question with some whether or not the few apple trees here and 
there that were found In full fruit when In 1779 General Sullivan 
laid waste the gardens and products, generally, of the Iroquois coun- 
try, were set by the Indians or the Jesuits. 

It Is apparent from the location of the so-called Indian orchards, 
that the Jesuits followed the leading trails of the Red Man as they 
penetrated the wilderness to establish tihelr posts In the latter part 
of the 17th century. 

The Jesuits were mainly Intent In founding their missions to 
carry on the work they set about and In recording existing conditions, 
observations, and experiences among an unlettered people who 
through centuries of primal solitudes had unwavering faith In their 
own spdrlt-land of Immortality. The Jesuit missionaries, Franciscan 
priests, and Recollect fathers were the first Caucasians to lift up 
their voices upon the soil of the long unknown continent In tlhe faith 
of the Father-land. They left their homes In sunny France, 
surrounded by wealth of ecclesiastical position, and sought 
abode among wild beasts and men of whom they had no 
knowledge. In many Instances they did good work, Inculcating tem- 
perance, moral obligations, peaceful and humane principles and the 
good precepts Inculcated In their own lives. The most widely grati- 
fying results of their pilgrimage Into the New World was the 
proclamation abroad of the) manifold possibilities for the spread of 
civilization over a country destined in the march of events to become 
tftie Great Republic among the nations of the earth. 

EARLY SETTLERS. 

No clear and positive date of the first white settler in Jerusalem 
seems to be established. The original man to purchase land, make 
a clearing, and erect a habitation, Is not susceptible of proof beyond 
a doubt. 

But there are evidences within the memory of the writer as to 



16 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

the first known white man who came i»nto Jerusalem and lived 
among the Indians years before there was any settler within the real 
meaning of the word. Asa Brown came i^to Jerusalem when it was 
an unbroken wilderness and dwelt among the Indians a cc»nsiderable 
time. He was quite a young boy when he came, but as he was a 
powerful lad and loved hu'nting and fishing, he soon became a favor- 
ite among the Indians. He related in the hearing of the writer tlhat 
they treated him with the utmost kindness. He slept in their wig- 
wams, ate at their board, and went with them on maroy hunting and 
fishing expeditions. On one occasion, he related in the hearing of 
the writer, being alc*ne in the forest when he shot a large deer, 
and fi'nding it too heavy to carry to the wigwam, he quartered it and 
hung up half of it to a tree, carrying the other half to the Indian 
lodge. The next day two Indians went back with him and helped 
carry the remaining half to the abiding place. 

As he grew up to manhood he made a clearing and put up a log 
house in Pulteney, not far from the shore of Lake Keuka. The 
Indians often came to his house for dried venison. He always gave 
it to them, and in his absence his wife never refused them. TIhe 
greater portion of his life was passed in the region of Lake Keuka, 
much the larger portion of the time being a resident of Jerusalem. 
In his early life he lived several years with the Indians at the 
Indian village at Branchport, and was an inmate with the family of 
the father and mother of Red Jacket, a»nd knew the latter from 
infancy. 

Asa Brown enlisted in the War of 1812 and was sent into Canada 
against the British. He died in Jerusalem on the 9th of January', 
1877, aged 96 years and 9 days. He was born January 1, 1781. 

In his prime, Asa Brown was a man of great strength. A num- 
ber of years ago there was a stone at the top of the hill, just above 
the Chase place, which two men saw him lift onto a»n ox-cart. Some 
years afterward the late Morrison L. Chase, w|ho had heard these 
men relate the feat, drew the stone to the east side of his residence. 
Some who have tried to lift it havd declared that it would be as 
much as two strong men could do to raise it from the earth. In 
June, 1908, Lorimer Ogden and his son^ of Penn Yan, having pre- 
viously obtained consent to take the stone, removed it to the resi- 
dence of Mr. Ogden, where it may now be seen ifa his yard. Soon 
after its removal the writer received the following letter: 

"Penn Yan, N. Y., June 25, 1908. 
"Mr. Miles A. Davis: 

"Dear Sir — My son and I went over after the Asa Brow^ stone 
last week, and now it is by the fish pond in our yard. 

"It weighed by the Conklin scales 580 pounds. As near as I can 
ffed out it is composed of iron and silica, but how it could be so 
finely polished I cannot tell. There are three small lines of red on 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 17 

one side, and altogether is is a rare stone for this part of the 
country. Those who saw it on our way home said no man could 
lift it, it was so smooth. Yours respectfully, 

"LORIMER OGDEN." 

The writer of this work is of the opinion tlhat the stone is of 
meteoric origin. 

Asa Brown was a man of integrity whose word no one wou'd 
question who knew him. The narrations he made on winter even- 
ings by the fire^place in the log house, in the hearing of the writer, 
to his beloved father, the late Joseph N. Davis, would make a vivid 
chapter of interest, but the writer cannot call up from dhildhood 
those recollections in sufficiently definite form to relate them. They 
were of his life and experiences to a considerable extent among the 
Indians of this region. 



The palm of original settlement is proffered, generally, to mem- 
bers of the Friend's Society. Undoubtedly they were among the 
first to swing the clearing ax in the forests of Jerusalem. In the year 
1791 a brush habitation was made and a clearing begun on the orig- 
inal Friend's place, in the Guyanoga Valley, where, tjhree years later, 
a double log house was put up for the Friend and the Society. This 
was on land now belonging to James G. Alexander. 

Ezekiel Sherman, father of the late Bartleson Sherman, camte to 
Jerusalem to make permanent settlement in 1794, along with a num- 
ber of others of the Friend's Society. Some apple trees are still 
standing near the residence on the Bartleson Sherman place that 
were planted there in 1794 while the country was all woods in every 
direction. For many years one of the most valuable and beautiful 
groves of sugar maples adorned the homestead and delighted many 
who knew the location. His residence, erected in 18G9, is still a 
magnificent abode. Bartleson Sherman was a splendid specimen of 
manhood, and evidently loved and cultivated the beauties and practi 
cal good things of nature and art. 

Daniel Brown was one of the earliest settlers. He selected for 
his abode the location where the late Cyrenus Townsend resided. 
He chose this location mainly because of a spring of clear cold 
water wjiich is continually flowing. The orchard on the opposite side 
of the road was the first one set out in Jerusalem, according to the 
recollection of Samuel Davis, grandfather of the writer, who was 
one of the earliest pioneers of Jerusalem. When Daniel Brown set- 
tled there the whole country was an unbroken wilderness of woods. 
In later years, when mail service was established between Penn Yan 
and Prattstown (as it was called by the early settlers) Daniel Brown's 
abode became a house of public entertainment. Before Penn Yan 



18 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

existed, the eastern extremity of this stage route was the house of 
Captain Lawrence Townsend m what is now Benton. 

Daniel Brown, junior, made large additions to the original home- 
stead and built thereon the first grist mill in Jerusalem, about where 
the Adams grist mill of later years was situated. He also erected a 
saw mill "near the same spot, which later was owned by Isaac Adams. 

George Brown, a brother of Daniel, junior, bought 600 acres of 
the Beddoe Tract, west of the lake, which included the present site 
of Branchport, and after his deatjh in 1820 the land was sold off in 
parcels. 



William Davis moved from near Philadelphia to Jerusalem in 
1792. He was one of the first tax-payers in what is now Jerusalem. 
He died in 1818 at the age of 70 years. 

Jesse Davis, a son of William Davis, alluded to, was born in 1778 
in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and married Rebecca Yates of 
his native place. She died in 1826, and in 1827 he married Hulda 
Barnes, daughter of Elizur Barnes. Hulda Barnes Davis, always 
kindly known among her many friends as "Aunt Hulda," died Au- 
gust 8, 1900, aged 92 years, 9 months amd 15 days. Jesse Davis died 
in 1862 aged 84 years. Both were most excellent and highly es- 
teemed people whom many residents of Jerusalem well remember. 
Of their family of three sons and two daughters, only one, William 
C. Davis, is living m Jerusalem. He resides on the original home- 
stead. 

Mrs. Hulda Davis was the last of the Quaker Society in Yates 
County. 

Jesse Davis came to Yates County with Abraham Wagener in 
1791, and they were together about three years living on the west 
shore of Seneca Lake in a bark shamty. They went to Newtown (now 
Elmira) to mill. At the age of 18 Jesse Davis helped Joseph Jones 
survey out a township in which Dansville is now located. They 
were engaged in the work one month. Only two log houses then 
existed in Dansville. It was a dense wilderness. Panthers followed 
them, and wolves besieged them so closely that more than cace thr^y 
had to stand all night and throw fire-brands at them to keep the 
ravenous beasts at bay. 

Jesse Davis was a Quaker, and all his life he was noted for his 
kindly nature, uprightness, integrity, and honesty. 



Jonathan Davis came from near Philadelphia to Jerusalem in 
1792, and the same year he purchased 80 acres of land of Jacob 
Wagener, about half a mile west of Guyanoga Valley, whereon he 
resided till his death m 1870, aged nearly 93 years. His wife died in 
1858 in her 81st year. Jonathan was a quiet, peaceable, conscientious 
citizen. He was blessed with a remarkable memory of dates and 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 19 

principal facts about events that came to his knowledge all through 
life. Few men ever had such clear and positive recoUecticiis. The 
father of Jonathan Davis, whose name was John Davis, died in Jeru- 
salem at the age of 92. The grandfather of Jonathan Davis was also 
John Davis, who emigrated from Wales and settled near Philadelphia. 
Both Johns were t;he only sons of the families to which they be- 
longed. 

Isaiah Davis was the only son of Jonathan Davis and was a 
modest, unassuming, upright, kind, obliging, and as honest a man as 
the sun ever shone upon. He was a "noble example of the gentle 
teachings of his Quaker ancestry. He died on the homestead in 
November, 1870, in the 68th year of his age. 



John Beddoe came from Wales, Europe, to Jerusalem in 1798. 
After he arrived in New York jhe bought a small three-tcta boat 
upon which he conveyed his goods up the Hudson River, thence up 
the Mohawk and other bodies of water till he reached Geneva. 
Where there was no navigable water course he had the boat and 
effects carried by teams. From Geneva he sailed his boat up Sen- 
eca Lake to Dresden and from there up the Miinnesetah River to 
Lake Keuka, fi-nally landing on the east shore of the North Branch, 
where Edward N. Rose now resides. With five you-ng men he 
brought with him from Geneva they commenced a clearing of these 
beautiful grounds. They first erected a small frame house and 
afterward a hewed log house in 1807, which was built by Benjamin 
Durfham. It was a most beautiful site for an abode. About forty 
acres were cleared and sown to winter wheat in due time. A frame 
house was erected some years later, farther back from the lake. It 
is still standing. His wife died in 1815, and he died in 1835 at the 
residence of his son, Lynham J. Beddoe, in Branchport, at the first 
frame house i-n the village, and which is still standing. John Bed- 
doe purchased the large tract of land, known as the Beddoe Tract, 
of his brother-in-law, Jofhn Johnstone, in London. 

There are various accounts of the amouTit of land in the Tract 
origiTially purchased by Captain John Beddoe, but as near as can be 
ascertained there were 1,050 acres east of the North Branch of Lake 
Keuka,. upon which his different residences were erected, awd 
6,000 acres lying west of this branch of the lake, taking in one tier 
of lots north of the present highway between Branchport and Italy 
Hill, and all on the south side of the highway to the Pulteney line. 
Nearly all of this great tract of land was covered with a dense pine 
forest of magnificent growth. Its value, today, if standing, would 
be inestimable. 

Captain Beddoe was unaccustomed to farming, consequently his 
knowledge of the requirements of the husbandman was quite limited, 
as the following incident related of him will show: His manner 



20 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

of haying for two years had been attended with unsatisfactory re- 
sults, so much so that his crop of hay had bee»n ruined by "heating." 
The third haying season had closed and the crop was stored snugly 
away in the barn. A few days after, he discovered that his hay 
uas rapidly being ruined by "heating," viewing which he exclaimed: 
"I cut that hay in the rain, piled It up i-n the rain, and drew it to 
the barn in the rain, and it will burn up yet in spite of the devil." 



Captain Lawrence Townsend, who married Phebe GreeB, a cou- 
sin of General Green, of Revolutionary fame, was born near Albany 
in 1740. He was a Captai-n in the Revolutionary army, and won dis- 
tinction by his bravery in the battle of Stillwater. He was present 
at Burgoyne's surrender at Saratoga, and took charge of some of 
the prisoners. It has been stated to the writer that he came to 
Jerusalem about 1790 and bought a large tract of land. Of the 
amount of his purchase or where located, the writer has been unable 
to learn. It is further related that a log shanty was erected in the 
woods and in the following winter his son John journeyed there 
with some of the household goods. Shortly softer, Lawrence Towni- 
send with all his family made the journey in a wild country 
thronged with Indians and beset with( wild beasts. He moved into 
the log shanty previously erected. 

Lawrence TowBsend's son John married Hannah Fox, and 
owned and occupied the place where Chapman Sherwood now resides 
as well as other lands north and east of there. He built the first 
saw mill on The Big Gully, near the highway leading to the Green 
Tract. Their children were: Phebe, (wlho became the wife of 
Christopher Columbus Chase), Stephen, Elizabeth, Pamelia, Obediah, 
Nancy, (who became the wife of John Brown), Hannah, John, Cyre- 
nus, Mary A. and Emma, (who became the wife of John Johnson, 
of Pefnn Yan). Of this family and their descendants none are now 
living in Jerusalem, though several of them with their families lived 
a number of years within its boundaries. 



Castle, Ephraim, Jonathan, Jesse, and Abigail Dains came from 
Connecticut at the time of the advent of the Friend to this region. 
All except Ephraim were of the Friend's Society. Jonathan, Castle, 
and Ephraim settled in Jerusalem at about the same time as the 
Friend's colony. Jonathan was a faithful adherent of the Friend to 
the last, dying at the age of 92. 

Castle Dains was a Revolutionary soldier. He was famous for 
his skill in curing bites of rattlenakes among tjhe early settlers, 
which he did by means of a plant that grew in the woods, known 
only to himself. His daughter Elizabeth married Benjamin Durham, 
a well-known millwright and an early settler of Jerusalem. Castle 
Dains lived a number of years on what was later knoAvn as the 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 21 

Linus Dickinson place, in an old frame house thafl was standing in 
the early years of the writer's recollection, on the south bank of the 
gully by the road a, few rods east of the lands of William C. Davis, 
He came to Jerusalem with the Friends about 1794 and passed away 
among them at the age of 94. Many interesting incidents were 
related about him by those who knew him. He was in some re- 
spects a remarkable character. 

Ephraim Dains was also a Revolutionary soldier and one of the 
ealiest settlers in Jerusalem. He was a' great hunter, and many a 
thrilling story is related of him and his exploits among the wild 
beasts of the forest. He had a stentorian voice and a faculty of 
sending it ringing througjh the woods a long distance. Some who 
had heard him claimed that at times he would frighten into terror 
some of the wild anmials of the forest when he sounded his trumpet- 
toned voice. However, he was a brave man wherever courage count- 
ed in the cause of his country, and was never known to fear the 
face of clay. There was something of the grotesque, too, in his 
nature. It is related that on one of the occasions when he had been 
out hunting and shot a wild cat and brought it home, after partak- 
ing freely of the fluid which inebriates, of which he was occasionally 
too fond, he made a stew of a portion of the wild-cat's body and 
declared he was going to have a feast. He ate some of the soup and 
a little of the meat, but soon abandoned the festival as too strong 
a diet, and some of the settlers said the cat, true to its nature, be- 
gan to climp up and out of its confines. Ephraim had quite enough 
of his uncanny feast of the wild. 

The place where Ephraim Dains was the first settler is now 
owned and occupied by Edgar E. Davis, and some of the fruit trees 
planted by this Revolutiionary hero wiho was a participant through- 
out the long seven years of t|he Colonial struggle, are still standing. 



Eleazer Ingraham was one of the early settlers of Jerusalem. 
He was all his life a zealous member of the Friend's Society. His 
descendants are yet represented among the living in Jerusalem and 
elsewhere. His children were Daniel, Philo, Eleazer, John, Abigail, 
Lydia, Rachel, Patience, and Menty. The last one named became 
the wife of Samuel Davis, one of the early pioneers of Jerusalem. 
Patience became the first wife of Asa Brown. Eleazer settled in 
Pulteney, and one of his daughters, Polly, became the wife of Row- 
land Champlin, a well-known early settler in Jerusalem. 

John Ingraham had one sen, Eleazer, who married Esther Boyd, 
daughter of Wm. Boyd, a soldier. This son died several years before John 
Ingraham passed away in 1849, at the age of 72. John Ingraham 
came into possession of the estate of his father, Eleazer, consisting 
of 116 acres, adjacent to and east of the stone school house. Out of 
sympathy with and regard for his sister, Rachel Ingraham, who was 



22 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

a life-long adherent to t|he Friend's Society, he deeded to her 26 acres 
cnx the east side, upon which she resided till her death in 1873. She 
v.as one cf the two last survivors of the Friend's colony. John In- 
-graham was a noble, generous, kind,- hearted, honest man, and justly 
enjoyed the esteem of all who knew him. 

Nathaniel Ingraham lived upon the Friend's location several 
years and tJhen bought a farm just west of the stone school house, 
upon which he erected a log house and barn. Some years afterward 
he built a frame house on the place, which was the seco«d one put 
up anywhere along the road from Guyanoga Valley to the Italy line. 
He was faithful to the precepts of the Friend to the last. 



The Luther family were prominent among the early settlers of 
Jerusalem. Elizabeth Luther a widow, came from Rhode Island with 
her eight children. She was a faithful member of the Friend's so- 
ciety and was a woman of superior qualities. Her son, Elisha Luther, 
married Elizabeth Holmes, and they had a son and daughter. His 
second wife was Sidna Barrett, a widow. They had five children, of 
whom Deborah belcame the wife of Jeremiaih S. Burtch, and their 
daughter, Mary J., became the wife of Dr. Samuel H. Wright, A. M., 
a man of eminent scientific attainments, who died a few years ago. 
Joel, a son of Jeremiah S. Burtch, was the father of the Burtch 
Brothers, the wellfknown tradesmen of Branchport. 



William Robinson was one of the society of tlhe Friend's who 
came to Jerusalem from Pennsylva'nia soon after the first settle- 
ments were made. He constructed the first fanning mill in the coun- 
try. 



Samuel Davis was one of the first pioneers of Jerusalem. He 
came while still a youth, prospecting for land. Bears, wolves and 
panthers were in the forests. To find his way back from his land- 
viewing journey, he blazed an occasional tree wiith his ax, and his 
course after settlements were well under way, afterward became the 
first highway in this region. 

GEOLOGICAL OUTLINES. 

It seems a logical conclusion from obvious facts that the earth 
was originally a liquid fire ball thrown into space. Whether it was 
cast off as a particle from the sun's huge body in its rapid rotation, 
along witjh the other planets that form our solar system, and they 
in turn cast off their attendant satellites, or moons, or was condensed 
out of the floating nebulous matter of space, is a question about which 
astronomers do not all concur. But they generally agree as to the 
planet having been in its first state an immense sphere of liquid fire, 
and that it was millions of ages before the surface cooled sufficient 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 23 

for the slowly confined gases of the interior to begin their convulsive 
outbreaks through the crust. Gradually the gases assumed an ac- 
queous form, and when the surface cooled down deep enoug:h amd the 
vaporous exhalations condensed into descending rains, the strata cf 
rocks began to be laid at the bottom of the ocea*ns covering the 
greater portion of the planet. Earthquakes and enormous upheavals 
continued, and the softly form'ng rocks were s'haken, uplifted and 
tilted in coumtless ways. The gases given off were carbonic, and 
when the conflicting elements softened areas of the crust sufficient to 
maintain the lowest forms of plant life, these rudimentary growths 
were fed by the carbon to such an i'atense degree that the simplest 
vegetation became gigantic forests. Oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, hy- 
drogen, and probably ozone, were struggling for the mastery i^n the 
evolutionary atmosphere which could hardly be said to exist in defi- 
nite condition through successive ages till the first and lowest form 
of animal life was developed in the protozoa, which corresponds at 
the present time with infusoria. This is indicated in the lowest sys- 
tem of rocks in which traces of organic structure have been found. 
Successive stages of life, from the crustaceans of the Siluriaii period, 
on through the Devonian age in which appeared tne first form of 
vertebrates — fishes — till, finally, in the fulness of time, the mastodon, 
megatherium, giganterium, and other enormous mammalia of later 
ages, and at last Man, as the flower and fruit of Titanic times. 

According to Haeckel, the simplest possible order of a livl'ng 
particle was a moneron, wlhich he defined as a body cf protoplasm in 
which no definite structural fcrm could be discerned. Protoplasm is 
a substance somewhat resembling the white of an egg, and its com- 
po-nent elements are carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen, and con- 
stitutes the physical basis of life in both plants and animals. 

At what period in the cycles of time Man first appeared upon 
our planet. Earth, is still a debatable question on the part of many 
emincjt scientists. It seems to be generally admitted that other forms 
of life existed ages before Man. In fact, Man appears to have been 
the acme or final product of physical life — the last of the vast suc- 
cession of animate existence — though Man's place in the actual se- 
quence of planetary life development cannot be regarded as deter- 
mined beyond a doubtj. It is evident that Man existed during the 
Pleistocene period when the greater portion of the earth was sub- 
jected to the gigantic polar icecap, or glacial movement. Recently, 
two priests in the southwestern part of France found a skull 
a'.id other bones which were soon afterward placed in the 
Paris Museum of Natural History, and Prof. M. Perrier, 
the director of the museum, after long and careful investi- 
gation, classified the bones, from the age of the deposits where 
found, and other evidences, as belonging to the Pleistocene period, 
which was distinguished as the glacial epoch. The skull is wonder- 



24 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

fully like the one discovered about the middle of the last century at 
Neanderthal, Germany, a cast of whicih the writer of this volume has 
carefully examimed in the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. 
The Pleistocene period was characterized with implements of flint, 
bone, ivory, &c., as found in the river drifts in Belgium, Northern 
France and England, in the old glacial region. At a later period than 
the river drifts are found the remnants of the old cave men, and it 
was claimed by eminent scientists that the Neanderthal skull be- 
longed to an earlier race tham the cave dwellers. The writer ob- 
served as he examined the cast at the Smithsonian Institution, that 
it had no jaw, and, to all appearance, never had. Only the craraium 
seemed to have been the sole framework of the head. 

A German savant who recently examined some human remains 
discovered hi a Swiss cave, declared that Man lived there before the 
last glacial period, at least upward of 100,000 years ago. 

Inasmuch as there has been considerable discussion and specula- 
tion, at one time and another, about the footprints found in rocks ill 
the Connecticut Valley, much of which the writer has perused, as It 
has a bearing upon the subject under consideration, a glance at the 
principal facts seem consistent with a fair presentation. It appears 
that Prof. Eldward Hitchcock, then President of Amherst College, 
found many thousa'nds of tracks of supposed animals imprinted in the 
sandstones of the Ccnnecticut Valley. These sandstones were in ac- 
cumulation and process of formation milliofas of years ago, during the 
Triassic period, geologiically speaking. The finding of these unmis- 
takable evidences of forms of life existing so far back in the great 
shadows of time, naturally aroused i-ntense interest. These fossil 
footprints in the rocks were an undisputable record of life of positive 
value in unfolding its history. Prof. Hitchcock collected about 20,000 
of these tracks in the rocks and placed them in the museum collectica 
of Amherst College. These tracks in the sandstones were found ex- 
tending north and south a distance of about thirty miles, of which 
Amherst was about in the center. After much patient research, ob- 
servation and study. Prof. Hitchcock came to the conclusion that the 
tracks were made by reptiles with feet. Later, Prof. Marsh and others 
discovered and studied the dinosaurs, an extinct group of wonderful 
carnivorous reptiles, corresponding to the peculiarities of the tracks 
and tracings of movement in the Connecticut sandstone. One speci- 
me'n of tjhe dinosaur was found, and was placed in the Amherst 
Museum. In the sandstone were distinct traces of raindrops. The 
footprints remained in the soft forming sandstone rock, materially 
aided by the water, which was full of fine particles of mica. This, 
settling in the track, as the dinosaurs passed, prevented the mud as 
it filled the cavity of the tracks from cementing to the forming rock. 

This is but an instance, though a notable one, of the evidences 
of organic life long before Man appeared. 




MIDDLE FALLS, BIG GULLY. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 25 

A latter day scientist, with incomprehensible indifference to facts, 
goes so far as to declare that there are no evidences of the existence 
of Man on this continent previous to the Aborigine or Indian. In 
other words, that there was no pre-historic Man in America. It 's 
surprising that anyone of mental attainments, who has, presumably, 
made any study of archaeology, should make such a statement in face 
of tlhe volumes of facts set forth by original, conscientious and careful 
investigators, covering many years of diligent research, all conclusive- 
ly establishing the claim of Man's existence all over the American 
continent many centuries before the Aborigine built his wigwam in 
the New World. 

Before the first clearings rn the forest along the sea shore cf 
New England, by the Pilgnims, a'ad long ere the English made any 
settlement at Jamestown, Virginia, what white man so much as 
dreamed of the ancient Aztecs of Arizona and New Mexico? Previous 
to t]he peopling of this continent by Europeans, what historian, gifted 
with the prophetic acumen of Jules Verne, though he may have been, 
could have conjured the rocky abodes of the Cliff Dwellers of the 
southwestern regicms of the United States? Wbo knew anything 
about, or has any record of, the Cave Men of America? Who knows 
anything of the life and times of the Mound Builders, who left their 
earthworks right here in the State of New York as well as along the 
Ohio and Mississippi Valleys and other regicsis? No Indian can give 
any account of them. Surely they preceded the Red Man through 
unknown centuries. What historian, today, can tell us who wrought 
the wonderful architecture seen in the ruined remnants of cities that 
existed in the southern part of this continent unknown centuries be- 
fore Cortez invaded Mexico? 

Insta'nces could be multiplied, enough to fill a large volume, cf 
the positive indications of prehistoric people all over this continent 
and that unknown races of mankind existed upon the soil of the 
United States of America thousands of years before any considerable 
number of the people of the Old World believed or had any tangible 
proof that the eartih was round. 

Emerson, with his keen scientific and analytical mind, which 
could not be swayed by any theories, before any of Darwin's works 
were published, said in one of his essays on Nature: 

"Now we learn (from geology) what patient periods must round 
themselves before the rock is formed; then before the rock is broken 
and the first lichen race has disintegrated the thinnest external plate 
into soil, and opened tjhe door for the remote Flora. Fauna, Ceres and 
Pomona to come in. How far off yet is the trilobite! how far the 
quadruped! how inconceivably remote is man! It is a long way from 
granite to the oyster; farther yet to Plato and the immortality of the 
soul. Yet all must come as sure as the first atom has two sides." 

The oldest formation of rock on the American continent is known 
as the Laurentian group, and the first land uplifted from the uni- 



26 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

versal deluge is conceded by the most eminent geologists to have 
been a portion of North America. The writer of this work has ob- 
served an extended rim of this first land as it plainly appears in pass- 
ing over the Great Western division of tjhe Grand Trunk Railway in 
Canada, not long after leaving Suspension Bridge, on the way toward 
Winsdor. It appears for many miles like an elevated table-land above 
the railway line which extends a considerable distance along a part 
of the original bed of Lake Ontarip, the first uplift of land forming a 
portica of its ancient shore line. 

The Laurentian group of rocks was the base of worn-out moun- 
tain ranges, the oldest land in the world, stretching across an exten- 
sive region of Ca-nada and terminating in the low granite highlands 
about the headwaters of the Mississippi River. Prof. Louis Agassiz, 
v.lho was certainly most eminent authority, after a thorough inspec- 
tion of the whole rocky structure stated that the land, of which these 
rocks are the foundation, was the oldest in the worl<J. The Lauren- 
tian mountains came up out of the universal ocean, forming an ex- 
tensive island of original granite rock about which beat the waves 
of the great sea from every direction. This may properly be termed 
the back bone of the Nortjh American continent. The Allegany 
Mountains were next in order of the uplift, and then the Rocky rang- 
es, till in the elevating process the continent appeared in its present 
exte'at. 

The immediately underlying rocks of this region are generally 
of the Portage group, except in a comparatively small section of the 
northwestern portion of Jerusalem where the Chemung group is the 
first substantial strata below the soil. This layer of rocks extends 
over into Italy and a small section stretches into Potter. It crops out 
well up on the Green Tract, about the primal source of the Big Gully, 
and is not traced in any other portion of the township. 

The lowest rock formation in the Lake Keuka region is the Mos- 
cow shale, of which there are but few outcroppings of the upper por- 
tion of this layer along the Minnesetah River, wlhich is the outlet of 
Lake Keuka. The Tully limestone appears at the top of the falls in 
Bruce's Gully, near Dresden, and there is a vertical section in the 
gorge of Kashong Creek at the crest of the falls at Bellona. The 
Moscow shale usually contains some fossils. The Genesee shale is 
well exposed in the cliffs along the Lake Keuka outlet, and the south 
branch of Kashong Creek. There is a small outcrop of Ganundewa 
limestone on the east side of the Potter swamp, iand this rock also 
contains some fossils. 

There are few exposures of what is called the Middlesex black 
shale near the mouth of the Big Gully. This generally overlies the 
West River shale but the latter does not appear in this section. The 
PariS|h limestone is found six inches thick in a gully at Sherman's 
Hollow, and is ten inches thick as it appears in the Big Gully. This 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 27 

limestone also crops out in the Wagener Gully, near the village of 
Pulteney, a foot and half in thickness. Fossils are rare in the black 
shales, but beds of former land plants are sometimes found forming 
thin layers of ligTiitic coal. The Rliinestreet shale is also exposed 
in some portions of the Big Gully. Sandstones appear to some extent 
alcng this ravine. At one point is a sandstone six inches in thick- 
ness. Toward the east and south the sandstone gradually decreases. 
Flags and shales, intermixed, are found in the upper portions of the 
ravine. The approximate thickness of geologic formations amd por- 
tions of formations in this region is about 2,000 feet. 

That all this region was once subject to earthquake convulsions 
is easily demonstrated by am inspection of the rock layers to be seen 
from the bed of the stream of the Big Gully. It will be noticed that 
seams stretch clear through the strata as far as tihe eye can follow. 
When the rocks were still in a semi-plastic state, before the internal 
heat of the earth cooled down below far enough for the gravitating 
pressure to drive the perpetually generating gases in other directions, 
the molten mass of the interior found vent in uplifting the newly 
formed rock, and as the convulsion subsided the rock dropped back 
with its broken seams in, line with the direction of the force that up- 
lifted it like a ball rolling under a carpet. 

The final period of planetary evolution, known as the Tertiary, 
in which the sedimentary rocks, or third of the great series of strata, 
begin to reveal the more positive forms of life. 

It seems consistent with known facts to conclude that vertebrate 
forms of existence, if not of Man, had attained considerable magni- 
tude when the gigantic glacier or polar ice-cap slid down over the 
earth, grinding the rocks into soil as it slowly advanced, inch by inch, 
during the centuries of time, scooping out ocean beds, lakes, and 
river courses and leaving the drift deposits as monuments of its 
mighty pathway. That the glacial epoch descended from south to 
north, is evident from the fact that tropical animals and plants once 
existed in what is now the north polar regions. It is not long ago 
that a perfect mastodon was found embedded in solid ice in northera 
Siberia. All intelligent Arctic travelers and explorers concur in the 
finding of remains or positive tracings of tropical animals and plants 
in the course of their explorations. It is likewise manifest that in the 
patih of the ice avalanche many southward flowing streams were di- 
verted, dammed up at their sources, and new channels carved out, 
through which they subsequently flowed northward. Other streams 
were choked with the drift deposits under the slowly moving ice-cap, 
a mile or more in thickness, and forced to seek outlets in other di- 
rections. 

The cause of the glacial period, no one absolutely knows. The 
polarity of the earth may have been changed by the swing of some 
planet so near the earth that its position relative to the plane of its 



28 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

orbit w^s radically shifted. The ice-cap at what was then the pole 
— now the equatorial region — must have been accumulatl'ag during 
many ages,, and its weight and density would have been an enormous 
factor in shifting the scene, if, indeed, it was not the sole cause. 

It is unmistakable that the grinding avalancjhe of ice left certain 
impressions of its work in Jerusalem. The abrasions are not so ap- 
ijarent upwa the rock strata; but the boulders that were broken from 
other rock, the like of which do not exist in the township, were 
gtrewn along under the ice-plow that ground off their jagged edges 
and sharp corners and left behind as the giant glacier receded, are 
frequently to be seen. There are pleroty of indications that the stream 
through the Guyanoga Valley once flowed northward a'sid thence 
eastward into Seneca Lake, of which Kashong Creek, rising in Benton, 
v.as the lateral part of the stream. But the drift deposits, under the 
receding ice, elevated the lamds in and about the present sources of 
the two streams, in Benton, and the Guyanoga Valley stream was de- 
flected southward into Lake Keuka, forcing a new outlet for the lake 
through the Genesee slate from Penn Yam and the Tully limestone 
through Torrey to Seneca Lake. Previous to this the lake occupied 
all of the valley between Bluff Point and East Hill, and Bluff Point 
v.as then an island. The movement of the ice-cap toward the north 
ground off a considerable quantity of the promontory of Bluff Point 
and deposited it in what was then the lake bed north of it, thus filli*ng 
the valley above the water line when the lake finally receded through 
its final and lower outlet, and as it proceeded farther north, stopped 
the outlet of the lake in that directio«Q. In its path the bed of the 
lake itself was scooped out and formed as a receptacle for the flow of 
water beneath the slowly moving continent of ice. 

There are unmistakable indications that Lake Keuka extended 
far up the valley to the north. l>a fact well up on the hillsides, as 
the writer can point out, a plain shore line, or terrace, more than a 
mile west of the valley, still exists on the hillside. 

Dr. Samuel H. Wright stated to the writer some years ago, that 
there were two distinct terraces, or shore lines, on the west side of 
Bluff Point above the lake some distance. 

At the mouth of the David Smith Gully, c»a the west side of Guy- 
anoga Valley, is an immense deposit of sand and gravel,, on the north 
side, showing plainly the result of the swiirling action of water 
through centuries of time. As there is a high embankment of this 
sand and gravel, beyond any imaginary reach of tjhe gully stream, it 
Avas apparently the mouth of some former stream entering the lake at 
or near the summit of the bank wtiich filled up with its deposits Im 
the long lapse of time and sought another course. 

All this region was under water during many ages of time, and 
after the continent was uplifted from the universal deluge, the ice 
age channelled out the vast basin of t^^e Great Lakes, and there are 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 29 

demarkations that point to Lake Ontario as the basin into which the 
waters from this region flowed in the pathway of the glacier that 
ground a continent into alluvial soil. The parallel drift hills of Wes- 
tern New York justify the conclusion of this northward recession. 

Reverting to the original northward flow through the Guyanoga 
Valley, of the outlet of the then glacial lake, an examination of the 
map of the State Engineers' Survey, in 1900, shows that the altitude 
dividing the headwaters of the GuyaQoga Valley Creek and Kashong 
Creek, in Benton, is only 140 feet at the uppermost sources, while, at 
a point where the streams pass each otjier, going in opposite direc- 
tions, a little less than half a mile apart, there is an elevation of cnly 
forty feet rising between them. It is thus easy to see how the orig- 
inal outlet of Lake Keuka flowed on through Kashong Creek, till, at 
this point the glacial outlet became danimed up beneath the world of 
ice, thereby compelling the stream to flow back and force another out- 
let, as it did, into Seneca Lake. 

INDIAN VILLAGES AND TRAILS. 

The largest and most important of the Indian villages in Jeru- 
salem was on the land of Dr. James C. Wightman, on the north side 
of Basswood Gully, at Bra'nchport. Here the Seneca Indians largely 
assembled during the summer season and many of them remained 
throughout the year. Some Indian villages were mainly composed 
of Ga-no-sote, or bark houses, especially where the relics of the Red 
Race give evidences of a degree of permanency i»n the Stone Age 
implements left in the soil. It was here that the squaws made bas- 
kets, moccasins, strung beads, manufactured blankets and planted the 
maize and vegetables — especially beams and squashes — and performed 
the usual other feminine labors in the tepees and in the open air. It 
was here that they handed down to their papooses, of suitable recep- 
tive age, the oral records of tlie People of the Forest, till they in turn 
could repeat them with mathematical exactness. The squaws are the 
peepers of the traditions, legends, and all man'ner of folk-lore, as 
well as important events of the nation or race. They are likewise 
the arbiters of fate in war and peace of all that concerns the tribe 
or nation or the individual hi affairs of moment. 

The Seneca braves hunted up and down the valley and over the 
hills for the plentiful game which they were never known to slaughter 
except for food; never through wantonness or cruelty, which the 
white man calls "sport." The lake and streams afforded them plenty 
of fish, and their bark ca'noes often glided like a dream over the Ke- 
uh-kuh waters. (The Indian pronunciation accents the last syllable.) 

It was from this Indian village that some of fhe greatest of the 
Seneca warriors went forth. O-go-ya-go was a vast va*ntage ground 
of an inter-tribal ally of the Ga-nun-da-wahs, many moons before the 
paleface beheld the sequestered shores of San Salvador. The Met- 



30 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

a-wis-sas, enisled with their mighty arm of the lake, smoked the pipe 
of peace with their brothers of the western border. The swift canoe 
shot like a thing of life from every cove, leaving in its wake the 
wrinkling ripples upon the placid bosom of the lake. 

"Old woods, like the sunbow arrayed, 

By the breath of October were stirred. 
And music to soothe me was made, 
By wiBd, singing ripple, and bird. 

How sweet was the murmuring roll 

Of wavelets that break on the strand. 

And methought I was wafted in soul 
From earth to some magical land. 

Circling over thy bosom of blue 

The light graceful gull was afloat; 
And bravely Bluff Paint loomed to view 

From the deck of our beautiful boat 



The Red Ma»a may well with a sigh 

Look there on a paradise lost. 
While the bones of his forefathers lie 

Exposed to the gale and the frost. 

His pines, so majestic of old. 

Stand dreamy like battle-thinned ranks, 

The stone of his altar is cold, 

His trail blotted out en the banks." 

— ^Hosmer. 

From the Great Trail between Kanadesaga and Kashong along 
the west shore of Seneca Lalqe, another led westward to the foot of 
Lalae Keuka and northwesterly over East Hill into the Guyanoga 
Valley. Alo»ng the west side of this valley was a trail from the Indian 
village at Branchport to another Indian village on the land of New- 
ton Genung at the present juncticn of the roads, well up the valley 
toward the Potter line. It was a large village of the Men of the For- 
est, and their wigwams were there for some fcime after the white 
settlers began to locate in the neighborhood. The Indians were 
peaceable and gave no disturbance to the white people. Occasionally 
an Indan would call at the log houses of the settlers and ask for oc- 
un-taw or nun-an-daw, (potatoes or other products) and in return 
would bring the white settlers fish and venison from the forest and 
stream. Upon a knoll a short distance southeast of this Indian vil- 
lage, near the present highway along the east side of the valley, an 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 31 

Indian of evident distinction lived among his people of the past, and 
he continued to live there several years, alone, after the pioneer 
settlements were made. 

The ridges along the sloping lands adjacent to the dwelling place 
of this venerated Indian, which are a part of the lands that belonged 
to Elijah Malin, are of very peculiar formation, and though manifest- 
ly wrought out through the glacial recession, they are suggestive ot 
artrifice on the part of some of thq ancient earth workers. Over tjie 
valley portion of these lamds' hg.ve been found many relics of the men 
of the Stone Age, which came down through successive race periods, 
not only in wood-craft, but in copper, mica, and other metals. 

Following the trail down the gradually sloping Guyamoga Valley 
to the south, there have been abundant evidences of an Indian vil- 
lage on the place belcmging to the late Dwight Dickinson, whose 
father, Linus Dickinson, when he built the house there in 1849, took 
out fourteen Indian skeletons while digging the cellar. Several pipes, 
arrow heads, skinning knives and an occasional pestle have been 
found upon the grounds. These implements were used by the In- 
dians and are rarely found in numbers except upon the site of their 
villages. Besides, the friendly Indian, Gu-ya-no-ga, who lived a short 
distance north of this location during and after the Revolutionary 
War, and did all he could to aid and befriend the Revolutionists, 
conversed with people at that time about the Indian village there. It 
is exceedingly appropriate that this beautdful valley takes its name 
from that noble Red Man. 

There was an Indian encampment according to Mrs. Lucy Decker, 
on the place where she resided, which her father, Benjamin Durham, 
first cleared and owned. The Indian habit is to make the saine en- 
campment year after year, and in all probability they did so there 
many years before any white man appeared, as it is nearly on the 
line of the valley trail. 

There was an Indian trail, well worn, from Kashong (which is an 
Indian derivative word, signifying absence of frost, or a spot where 
frost is rare) to the foot of Lake Keuka, within the boundary of 
Jerusalem, where there was an Indian village of considerable impor- 
tance. This trail was well remembered by early settlers as a hard 
and thoroug;hly beaten track which so remained till broken by the 
plow. 

The late John L. Lewis, who was certainly eminent authority, in- 
formed the writer that the trail from Kashong to the foot of Lake 
Keuka extended on over East Hill into the Guyanoga Valley, and from 
there to the great Seneca Indian Village at Branchport Traces of 
this trajil were visible for some time after the first settlements. 

Kashong, on the west side of Seneca Lake, was a great Indian 
village, which was destroyed by a detachment of General Sullivan's 
army in 1779. The location was known many years as Ben. Bar- 



32 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

ton's landing. It has been stated that tjhis was the only battle 
fought on the soil of Yates County. Tf the mapping of the mouth of 
Kashong Creek is accurate, both sides of it are in Ontario County. 
If this be so, and if the skirmish or battle took place on the site of 
the Indian village of Kashong, it was just over the line in Ontario. 

The Great Trail from Kanadesaga by the way of Kashong, alcng 
the west shore of Seneca Lake, extended to the valley of the Sus- 
quehanna and across Western New York to Upper Canada, and it was 
the primitive pathway of all this Lake Country. 

it is related that the Guyatioga Valley Trail had another leading 
from it over West Hill into Italy Hollow to the great Council Tree — 
the Big Elm — and on to Ko-jan-da-ga, near the head of Canandaigua 
Lake. 

Visions of Jerusalem as a part of the great theater of the Ga-nun- 
da-wahs, or Great Hill People," who enveloped their traditional ori- 
gin in the supernatural genesis of Bare Hill, in Middlesex, overlooking 
Canandaigua Lake, rise like a dream before the calm reflection of 
today. However, the beginning of those foremost people of the Iro- 
quois Republic, in the voiceless ages of the unrecorded past, they ap- 
pear at the dawn of American colonization to have been the most 
aggressive and powerful of any of the Aboriginal Nations of the Em- 
pire State, if not, 'indeed, on American soil. Their domina'at influence, 
through the boldness and effectiveness of their warfare made them a 
potent factor to be reckoned with over a great scope of the ccvitinent- 
al wilderness. They were a trained nation of warriors. They feared 
no foe, however formidable, as they sounded the war clarion of the 
Six Nations. War-paths extended in every direction. Tomahawks 
wlhistled through every forest. They knew the trails far northward 
into the British possessions, westward to the great Father of Waters, 
in whose bosom sleeps De Soto, fhe first white discoverer of the Mis- 
sissippi River, southward beyond the banks of the Potomac, and east- 
ward to the turbulent Atlantic Ocean. They were, to the extent of 
their numbers, the most potential people of the forest-covered conti- 
nent of North America. 

Jerusalem, on its eastern line, is within less thara six miles of the 
great Ga-nun<la-sa-ga Trail, which was for centuries the beaten forest 
path between the Indians of the Tioga, Chemung and Susquehanna 
Rivers on one side and the great Indian village of Kanadesaga (now 
Geneva) in the Seaeca country, on the other. 

Secondary, or tributary trails, extended over portions of Jeru- 
salem. Some of these trails were quite perceptible at the fiime of the 
first settlements of white people. The first highway in the township, 
followed mainly the course of one of the lesser trails, hi part, it be- 
came an early stage mall route, from Capt. Lawrence Townsend's, in 
Benton, (years afterward starting from Perjn Yan), along in the vi- 
cinity of the Yates County Poor House and Larzelere's hotel and over 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 33 

cinity of the Yates County Poor House and Larzelere's hotel and over 
West Hill by tjhe stone school house to Prattsburg. 

Forest pathways of the Red Man could be traced at the time of 
the first settlements alcng the south bank of the Big Gully. Some 
of these primitive pathways were afterward converted into roadways 
for hauling timber out of the forests. The principal of these path- 
ways (whicb is now an old wood and lumber road) lead in an easy 
grade direct to the Forks of the Big Gully. 

A trail also extended nearly the whole length of Bluff Point, its 
general course passing what is now known as the Kenyoun school 
house and the residences of Morris Burt, Stephen Heck and James 
Stever. It was along near this primitive pathway that the ancient 
earthwork is located, the like of which is nowhere else to be found, 
descrsbed by t,he late Dr. Wright in another chapter. 

A trail extended from West Hill into Sherman's Hollow, passing 
by the abrupt conical hill near the Bartleson Sherman residence. This 
was probably to reach the Indian village in Sherman's Hollow. 

There probably were other forest pathways of the people whose 
original history "no man knoweth." Generations trained through in- 
terminable time acquire exceeding expertness in following footsteps 
that seem marvelous to eyes and senses not acute in woodcraft or 
specially trained observation. Indian wigwams and collective en- 
campments, councils and festivals drew the dusky inhabitants to- 
gether through the forests far away from the great tnibal or national 
footpaths, and thus some of the solitary passages only occasionally 
frequented were speedily lost sight of when the clearings broke In 
upon and subverted the Aboriginal hunting grounds. 

The Indians had their wigwams upon the hills and in the valleys 
of Jerusalem. It is positively known that they had at least five im- 
portant villages within this township: One on the premises of Dr. 
Wightman, at Branchport, one on the land of Newton Genung in 
Guyanoga Valley, another in Sherman's Hollow, another on the Dwight 
Dickinson place in Guyanoga Valley and anotlher on the land of 
Stephen Heck, on Bluff Point. 

They also had places of encampment in various other portions of 
the township. One of these was on land where Allen Burtch lived, 
on Eiast Hill, where have been found many relics left by the Red Men. 
Another was on land of the late Josiah White, on the Green Tract. 
Another was on land of Emmett Parker near the white school house, 
known as the Ezra Loomis place. Another on lands of the William H. 
Decker estate. There were also evidences of an Indian encampment 
on the farm where Mrs. Samantha L. Bush resides. 

FOOT OF LAKE KEIHCA— INDIAN VILLAGE. 

While the Seneca Indians were still the owners and occupants 
of all this region, there were two white refugees living upon the 



34 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

hospitality of the Red Men in the southeastern corner of Jerusalem, 
upon what has long been known as the Hanford estate. One of 
these men was named Hollenbecb. The other was a foreigner whose 
name was not known to the early settlers. The foreigner lived 
among the cluster of pines, some of which still beautify the shore of 
the lake where his habitation was located. He was there when Hol- 
lenbeck came, and had been adopted into the tribal relations of the 
Senecas. The Indians gave him as much personal liberty as they en- 
joyed. He was a blacksmith and gunsmith, and often repaired the 
weapons of the Aborigines, and was considered of much value among 
them. Hollenbeck lived a short distance further west, on lands of 
the same estate, but as he had not been adopted by the Indians, his 
hunting and fishing privileges were limited. 

These two men were refugees who were hiding from effects of 
colonization laws after the close of Shay's Rebellion in the eastern 
Colonies. They were then beyond the jurisdiction of the rudimentary 
government. 

During the first years of the previous century, Gen. William Wall 
obtained a tract of land extending around this side of the lake, in- 
cluding the pine trees alluded to, and had the ground surveyed and 
mapped into lots upon which to found a village to be called Summer- 
site. He was a Revolutionary soldier. However, he became ill In 
1804 and was conveyed to the Friend's house where he died. Sub- 
sequently the property passed into possession of Abraham Wagener, 
and the village scheme was abandoned. 

Upon these grounds there was an Indian burial place. From a 
conical shaped mound there were unearthed, some years after the 
pioneer settlements, considerable quantities of human bones. On the 
top of the mound was an oak tree a foot and a half in diameter. 
The skeletons were very large, some of them nearly seven feet in 
length, showing that they were once the pjiysical abode of men of 
gigantic stature. From this mound to the lake there was a walled 
aperture about three feet in width and height, which was covered 
over with earth. No white man was ever known to explore it. Indian 
relics in great abundance [have been found about the entrance to this 
subterranean structure. One of the early settlers says that brass and 
copper kettles, rifle barrels, iron and stone tomahawks, fragments of 
pottery, spear and arrow heads, stone pipes, and many other articles 
were found. There was a strange superstition about investigating 
this artificial cavern, or whatever it was. 

The site of these scenes and mysterious works of man afford 
material for curious speculation. The articles referred to were evi- 
dently not all the handiwork of the Men of the Forest. Some of the 
articles were probably those of French traders who established posts 
for exchange of goods with the Indians. As here was an Indian vil- 
lage of considerable proportions, the trade was no doubt carried on 
at this location several years. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 35 

It is claimed, also, that these grounds were the receptacle of 
valuable treasures buried there by some of the early adventurers in 
the New World. This claim seems somewhat mythical, as a great 
deal of digging at divers times has failed to reveal anything of com- 
mercial value. Some of those engaged in the search were frightened 
away when they reached an unknown sepulcher of the hidden past. 
It is related that John Snyder, an early prospector, a man of large 
stature, while hard at digging, struck a flat rock which resounded 
like a hollow cbamber of the dead beneath, and that he immediately 
dropped his tools and hurried into the boat in which he with others 
had crossed the outlet of the lake, followed by the others as rapidly 
as their legs could carry them. Snyder insisted ever after that he 
saw an apparition as big as a lion, with its tail erected over its back. 

This region about the foot of Lake Keuka was not alone the 
scene of dramatic visitations of mankind. It appears to have been 
a favorite rendezvous of the wild animals of the forest, especially of 
deers and wolves. It was the round-up and starting point of the 
hunter and the hunted, and many a deer has mingled his life blood 
with the waters of the lake when driven into it at the point of the 
rifle of the remorseless hunter. 

The fact is well established that here was a large and important 
Indian village. It was on a part of the Great Trail from Kanadesaga, 
by the way of Kashong direct to this location at the foot of Lake 
Keuka, and some of the very early settlers of Jerusalem often heard 
of ttis Indian village as well as some of the strange stories related 
and of the adventurous first white men who retreated here. This 
locality has been the scene of thrilling human experiences which 
would delight the mind and inspire the pen of the romancer. 

TOPOGRAPHICAL FEATURES. 

Jerusalem is prominently characterized by three extensive hill 
ranges. They are known as West Hill, East Hill, and Bluff Point. 
The West and East Hills are separated by the Guyanoga Valley, 
which extends from the northern head of Lake Keuka northward 
clear across the town&hip. East Hill and Bluff Point are divided by 
a narrow valley extending from the eastern shore of the North 
Branch of Lake Keuka to the East Branch, about three miles and a 
half in length. There are four distinct valleys in the township. 
Sherman's Hollow is one, though it may superficially appear as a 
depression in the West Hill range at the north. Its valley outlines are as 
positive and unmistakable as those of Guyanoga, though considerably 
less in extent, and instead of stretching away in a continuous line it ap- 
proaches somewhat toward a circle, with the descending grade gently 
sloping into the township of Potter, along which flows the gentle 
stream known as Nettle Valley Creek which has its origin on the 
West Hill range. The valley of Five Mile Creek, with its two forks 



36 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

formed from tjie sources, is apparently little more than a wrinkle in 
the West Hill range till it enters The Big Marsh in the southwest 
corner of Jerusalem, and this wonderful fen, full of interest to the 
student of Nature, is a valley carved out of the rolling upland by 
the gigantic plow of the glacial period when along this line one of 
the great furrows deflected to the south and left Five Mile Creek 
flowing beneath it as a tributary to Cohocton River. 

Thus, t,here are three bold high hill ranges and four well defined 
valleys in Jerusalem. The promontory of Bluff Point loses its valley 
features on all sides beneath the surface of Lake Keuka, except at 
the northern end confronting the southern slope of East Hill. Over 
this modest valley wherein is situated Keuka College, Park, and 
Kinney's Corners, once waved the waters of Lake Keuka, during 
which primal period of time Bluff Point was an island. 

Jerusalem has a much larger lake boundary than any other 
township in Yates County. On the west side of the North Branch 
of Lake Keuka there is a lake frontage from Branchport to Pulteney 
line, about a mile. Bluff Point, about eight miles in length, on the 
west side is bordered by the lake all the way. The longest range of 
shore is from the termination of Bluff Point, northeasterly, to the 
west side of the village of Penn Yan, a distance of about eleven 
miles, according to one of the Yates County maps. Thus, Jerusalem 
has a lake frontage or shore line of about twenty miles, a distance 
of nearly yie entire length of Lake Keuka between Penn Yan and 
Kammondsport. 

The West Hill range or ridge succession extends westward from 
the Guyanoga Valley clear across the township north and south, 
except the depression of Sherman's Hollow in the northwest part of 
the township, forming a continuous relay of uplands, steadily ascend- 
ing all the way to the Italy line and beyond, forming, finally, the 
highest elevation in the township, its highest point being 1191 feet 
above the surface of Lake Keuka. 

East Hill, with its western line dipping down to Guyanoga Val- 
ley, extends from the valley dividing it from Bluff Point, northward 
to the Potter line and beyond, gradually dipping toward a lower 
elevation as it extends toward the north. Eastward the range grad- 
ually slopes till it reaches the shore of the East Branch of Lake 
Keuka and the village of Penn Yan, the eastern slope extending into 
Benton on the north. The highest point on East Hill is 691 feet 
above Lake Keuka. 

Bluff Point at the apex of its everywhere noticeable elevation, is 
811 feet above Lake Keuka. 

The center of Lake Keuka is recognized as the boundary line 
between Jerusalem and Pulteney on the west side of Bluff Point, along 
the North Branch; and the center of the East Branch the line be- 
tween Jerusalem and Barrington and Milo, 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 37 

RED JACKET. 

There has been a great deal of discussion in newspapers and 
otherwise about the character and career of the famous Indian orator, 
Sa-go-ye-wa-tha, or as known in the English language, Red Jacket, 
because of the bright scarlet jacket presented to him by a British 
General during the Revolutionary War. This jacket was long worn 
by the celebrated spokesman of the Six Nations till in the course of 
time his individual identity became inseparably connected with it as 
a cognomen. His Indian name signified in English, "He keeps them 
awake." 

Volumes have been written about this foremost character in the 
vivid history of the Iroquois. The recital of even the salient dis- 
tinguishments in his intense career could not be condensed into a 
single chapter. He took a most prominent part in the greatest strate- 
gic events between the Aboriginal and Colonial contestants depicted 
on the pages of American history. His torrential eloquence, poured 
out with his mighty voice, were like the mythological thunders of 
Jove in behalf of his people. His utterance was the trumpet tone of 
the great Six Nations in matchless appeals against the sweeping en- 
croachments of the pale-face. He stemmed the gigantic tide of racial 
conquest, setting in over the continent, with the greatest inspirational 
eloquence that ever flowed from untutored lips. Finally, when 
treaties were the only alternatives for his people, he voiced their will 
in the all-engrossing essentials of the parchment records ere the 
chiefs should sign their symbol to transfer the vast hunting grounds 
of countless generations of the Sons of the Forest. 

Red Jacket was bom in 1752, and died in 1830, aged 78 years. He 
was active on the British side during the Revolutionary War. In the 
War of 1812-14 he was an useful ally of the Americans and a reliable 
agent of the Great Republic. He was to the last an uncompromising 
opponent of missionaries and the cession of the Indian lands to the 
white people. 

No North American Indian was so widely or generally known all 
over this continent as Red Jacket. He far excelled any other Indian 
in swaying the Red Men by his lofty, impassioned, and wonderfully 
symbolical torrent of language. The writer has conversed with sev- 
eral men who have listened to the vivid and forceful eloquence of 
Red Jacket, especially the late Judge John L. Lewis of Penn Yan, and 
Col. Elbert W. Cook of Havana (now Montour Falls), and they each 
stated that every gesture and movement Red Jacket made while 
speaking was most intensely expressive and significant, consonant 
with his vast volume of utterance and the trenchant presentation of 
his subject. Unquestionably, Red Jacket was the greatest Indian 
orator of which there is any account, oral or written, anywhere. 

The writer is in possession of fully substantiated information 
that Red Jacket at times was in the habit of going to the Che-qua-gah 



38 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Falls at what was then Catharinestown (now Montour Falls) to prac- 
tice oratory in the roar of the cataract there, which, in times of 
abundant water, is the glory of that place. When the waterfall there 
is at its flush it is a picturesque reminder of the wonderful word- 
painting of the poet, Robert Southey, in his "Cataract of Lodore." 

The wide-spread fame of this Aboriginal orator gave rise to In- 
quiries about his birthplace years before he passed on to the happy 
hunting grounds of the spirit land of his people. As if to set at rest 
these interrogatories for all time, in a speech he made at Geneva on 
the occasion of a public welcome there to General LaFayette on June 
7, 1825, at the old Franklin House, Red Jacket stated that he "was 
born over on the western arm of Ke-u-kuh, pointing, as he said it, to 
this branch of the lake. This speech was heard by thousands of 
people, and in part was jotted down at the time by Roderick N. Mor- 
rison for the Penn Yan Democrat, and was put in type by Alfred 
Reed, who was then an apprentice in the Democrat oflBce. Further- 
more, he alluded to the Sand Bar as indicating the spot of his 
birthplace, according to Judge John L. Lewis who read the speech 
after it was printed, a fact which he related unqualifiedly to the 
writer, and which certainly renders it more than probable that Red 
Jacket was born within the boundaries of Jerusalem. 

Col. William L. Stone, in his "Life of Red Jacket," claims that 
Red Jacket was born at Canoga, on the west bank of Cayuga Lake, 
a statement which will not stand the test of analysis, as Canoga 
was in the heart of the Cayuga territory, and as the Senecas and 
Cayugas were at enmity, there is no reason to suppose that Red 
Jacket's mother, and probably his father, would be away from their 
people and on hostile soil at that time. The word Keuka has been 
transformed or corrupted into both Cayuga and Canoga by various 
historical compilers whom the writer could name, and Col. Stone 
naturally embodied this error. 

Stafford C. Cleveland in his "History of Yates County," says: 

"Red Jacket, the distinguished native orator, was bom on the 
west branch of Lake Keuka within the boundaries of Jerusalem, and 
was an illustrious character whose place of nativity we may well be 
proud to claim. He saw what Brant could not or would not see, 
that war was the extermination of his people. He was gifted with 
rare eloquence and was an able reasoner. Men of the highest capa- 
city and accomplishments who shared his acquaintance regarded him 
as a marvel of his race and a truly great man." 

Some of the eminent delvers in Indian lore have been unwilling 
to accept of Red Jacket's own public utterance concerning the place 
of his nativity. Evidently, there could have been no motive on his 
part to make the statement other than to anticipate and end the 
questioning pressed upon him by irrepressible scribes of the time. 
The persistence with which this question has been asked and ans- 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 39 

wered oracularly by Indianologists to their own satisfaction ever 
since, reminds one of the posthumous fate of the immortal poet as to 
his nativity, since expressed: 

"Seven cities claimed great Homer, dead, 
Wherein the living Homer begged his bread." 

It has wrought no visible injury to the reputation of Red Jacket 
because some of these gentlemen, well versed in Indian lore, have 
gone so far in their Canoga ciaim as to erect a monument on the 
alleged site with such oracular inscriptions as are supposed to hush 
any further intention of lugging out interrogation points. Red Jacket 
is dead and cannot defend himself from his friends. So far as a col- 
umn of stone has any influence, it may help to perpetuate the mem- 
ory of the famous Seneca Indian, but it does not necessarily, inevi- 
tably, and unalterably determine the birthplace of Red Jacket. There 
is room for honest doubt beyond the shadow of the stone. The erec- 
tion of a marble column does not settle a controversial point in 
history, real or assumed. 

It is not far from thirty years ago — along in the '70's — that the 
birthplace of Adam was mooted. Some really able men of Elmira 
•went browsing around in occult lore, and by some psychological 
somersault came to the conclusion that the Biblical first man was 
bom at Elmira Heights, a suburb of the city. Straightway, these 
distinguished citizens set about raising a fund with which to erect a 
monument to Adam. But the newspapers began to poke fun at the 
chimerical and absurd project, and the great progenitor of the genus 
Homo is still going down to posterity unmonumented so far as those 
over-wrought phantomized imaginings or doings of the Elmira gentle- 
men are concerned. 

There are corroborative evidences, besides Red Jacket himself, 
that he was born on the shore of Lake Keuka, near Branchport. Asa 
Brown, when a small boy, was left by his father with the family to 
which Red Jacket belonged. He was placed with the father and 
mother of Red Jacket and had positive knowledge that the latter was 
born on the shore of the lake there where an Indian village was 
located. Asa Brown lived among the Indians there a long time. 
While his home was with the father and mother of Red Jacket, he 
was with other Indians considerably. He occasionally slept in their 
wigwams, went with them on hunting and fishing expeditions, and 
with them followed the long trails to obtain arrow-heads. 

A few years ago the writer asked Dr. James C. Wightman if he 
could tell about when he had conversation with Asa Brown about Red 
Jacket's birthplace and the principal facts related thereto. He re- 
plied : 

"I think probably in 1859 and subsequently at frequent times for 
years till near the time of his death. I went with him to show me the 
•deerlick' on the Basswood Gully. He said, 'This is historic ground. 
Red Jacket was born over there on the Bar,' and I went with him to 



40 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

the spot, at the base or commencement of the Bar where there were 
willow trees. In returning, he said he could show me where Red 
Jacket's camp ground was, and in the center or thereabouts he 
pointed out where they used to sit and shape their arrows, bows, and 
implements. He showed me where there were then very large trees 
where he used to see the Indians sit and shape bows and arrows, 
and when we reached the spot we found large quantities of arrow- 
head clippings. There seemed to be a circular mound plainly dis- 
cernible when I began cultivating the ground, and upon this was 
where they sat and shaped their arrow-heads. This circular eleva- 
tion was some five or six rods in diameter. 

"Asa Brown also told me that a stone which I found on these 
grounds was a smoothing stone for smoothing out the skins they were 
tanning. He also told me about another long shaped stone being 
used to grind or crush their corn. 

"I asked Asa Brown where they got the arrow-heads. He said, 
'They came from a black rock near Buffalo, and some from Pennsyl- 
vania.' He spoke of two routes, one around the foot of Canandaigua 
Lake and the other by Naples or the head of the lake. 'The squaws 
carried the arrow-heads on their backs from Buffalo and brought 
them here.' 

"On returning from the walk to the Sand Bar and around, he 
said he was tired, and that he would come around some time and 
show me where Red Jacket's mother was buried. He did so, later, 
and sjhowed me the spot. This he did several times, and talked 
about it a great deal. He was here often, and related many anec- 
dotes about Indians and their mode of life, the making and use of 
their various hunting and fishing implements. 

"At this identical spot where Asa Brown pointed out as the 
burial place of Red Jacket's mother, in the ground when they were 
scraping for a new coal yard and steamboat dock, on land of Phineas 
Tyler, portions of an Indian skeleton were found." 

Dr. Wightman made a careful examination of the portions of the 
skeleton thus found, and by comparative anatomy came to the con- 
clusion that they were the bones of an Indian woman. 

Asa Brown's integrity or veracity was never questioned by those 
who knew him. He was a member of Red Jacket's family — his 
father and mother and others — and was in a position to know where- 
of he affirmed. 

Mrs. Margaret Botsford, mother of the late Samuel Botsford, was 
one of the first settlers in this region of the country. She knew Red 
Jacket and the family to which he belonged. A few months previous 
to her death, when her mind and memory were clear and bright as 
ever, she stated to the writer that Red Jacket was born at the Bar 
of the lake near Branchport. No one ever questioned the integrity of 
Mrs. Margaret Botsford. 

Alfred Pelton, a very early settler, knew Red Jacket, and related 
that he several times heard him speak of having been born on this 
arm of the lake. 

The late Judge, John L. Lewis, a gentleman whose word no on© 
questioned, was well acquainted with Red Jacket, and he related to 
the writer that Red Jacket told him several times that he was born 
at the Bar of Lake Keuka, on the west side. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 41 

The writer has carefully perused all that has appeared from the 
pens of the most eminent Indianologists of the State in support of the 
Seneca County location as being the birthplace of Red Jacket, and 
must say, with all due deference to their studies and investigations 
as well as their conclusions therefrom, that he finds no direct, posi- 
tive, first-hand, original evidence. The writer is thoroughly convinced 
that they were mistaken. The shore of Lake Keuka affords proof 
which from every point of view is deemed conclusive, and which 
would satisfy any conscientious and impartial inquirer that Red 
Jacket was born in the township of Jerusalem. It is as well estab- 
lished a fact as human testimony can make it. 

Since the above was written, the writer has been favored with a 
letter from Hon. Robert P. Bush, well known all over the State, a 
native of Jerusalem, in which he alludes to the fact that Red Jacket 
"was born down at the base of the Sand Bar, in Branchport. I know 
from old Indians who came to pay their tribute of res^pect to his 
memory when I was a boy." 

The writer of this volume has other corroborative evidences as 
to the nativity of the world-renowned Indian orator, but nothing can 
be more convincing than the first-hand testimony of those who saw 
and personally knew whereof they stated and had no possible reason 
for coloring or concealing their knowledge of facts. 

TOWNSHIP ORGANIZATION— TRACTS OF LAND. 

Originally, all this portion of the State was a part of Albany 
County, which was organized November 1, 1683. In 1772 a new 
county was formed which comprised all the lands west of a line 
drawn north and south through the center of what is now Schoharie 
County, to which the name of Tryon County was applied in honor 
of the Governor at that time, William Tryon. Soon after the close of 
the Revolutionary War the name of Tryon was changed to Mont- 
gomery County. On the 27th of January, 1789, Ontario County was 
formed out of a considerable portion of Montgomery, and it was 
given the na.me of Ontario from the fact that its northern line was 
Lake Ontario. All of what is now Yates as well as Steuben County 
was included in Ontario. Steuben was formed out of Ontario March 
18, 1796. In the formation of Steuben County the southern portion 
of Bluff Point, to its extremity, formed a part of that county. When 
the townships were organized by the General Sessions of Ontario 
County in 1796, the name of Jerusalem was retained in deference 
to the original choice of Jemima Wilkinson, the Friend, who named 
all this region in which her followers cast their lots, t,he New Jeru- 
salem. 

By the Ontario County General Sessions in 1796 the present town- 
ships of Benton, Milo, and Torrey were given the name of Vernon. 
When Yates County was formed in 1823 Jerusalem was included 



42 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

therein. The southern portion of Bluif Point had been set off from 
Steuben County to Jerusalem, previously, in 1814, by act of the L-eg- 
islature. In 1803 tjhe boundg,ries of Jerusalem were designated as 
"township number 7, range 2, and that part of township 7, range 1, 
lying west of lot 37 and Lake Keuka." 

Phelps and Gorham sold to Thomas Hathaway and Benedict Rob- 
inson the whole of township number seven, second range, in Sep- 
tember, 1790. This was the original Friend's Tract. Previous to the 
sale to the representatives of the Friend, stated, in the summer of 
1790, Daniel Guernsey surveyed the tract, or township as it was 
called, into lots. Abraliam Burdick and his son Nathan accompanied 
the surveyors as chainmen. Thoms^s Hathaway and Benedict Robin- 
son were with the parties in making the survey. They were four 
days in establishing the outward lines of the township, or tract, 
through the dense forest. The east line extended north and south on 
a parallel wit;h the line between Benton and Potter. This was the 
original east line of Jerusalem which extended along the present 
east line of the County Poor House Farm and the eastern boundary 
of the Rose estate. All east of this line, to Penn Yan, was then 
known as Vernon, which was afterward set off to Jerusalem. In 
reference to the size of Jerusalem as first surveyed and the number- 
ing and apportioning of the lots, Stafford C. Cleveland's "History of 
Yates County" says: 

"The township was found to overrun its six mile boundaries, by 
72 rods north and south, and 60 rods east and west. This overplus 
was equally apportioned to the several lots which were otherwise one- 
half mile from north to south and one mile from east to west, con- 
taining 326 acres each. The first tier of lots was numbered from 
north to south, beginning with number one at the northeast corner of 
the township. The second tier commenced on the south at number 
thirteen and was numbered northward to twenty-four. The township 
contained seventy-two lots by this survey. By agreement of Hatha- 
way and Robinson, the inlet creek was made the west boundary of 
the first tier of lots, owing to the difficult ground over which the line 
had to be traced. This made the first tier much larger than the re- 
maining lots and the second tier correspondingly small." 

It should be borne in mind that this tract or township purchased 
by Hathaway and Robinson included all of what was subsequently the 
larger portion of the Beddoe Tract. But Hathaway and Robinson 
finding themselves unable to pay for all the township of land, after- 
ward re-sold to Oliver Phelps 7000 acres on the south side of the 
township, comprising a strip more than a mile in width. The width 
of the lake was not included. Oliver Phelps sold this tract to James 
Wadsworth, a well-known pioneer of the Genesee, who sold it to 
John Johnson, of London, for $10,750. Though that was a price largely 
in excess of its value at that time, if the tract was now as then, with 
the magnificent pine forest covering it as in tjiose days, its value 
would easily be worth that figure multiplied by 100. Johnson con- 
veyed this tract of land to his brother-in-law, Captain John Beddoe, 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 43 

who became the first permanent settler upon it. He sold off 2000 
acres of this tract from the east end, and 1058 acres to John N. Rose. 
The remaining 5000 acres were afterward re-surveyed into lots of 160 
acres each. The numbering of these lots began at the southwest 
corner of Jerusalem and extended northward. The second tier of 
lots was numbered southward from the north line of the tract, and 
so on alternating till the total number reached 32. 

The second largest tract of land in Jerusalem was known as the 
Green Tract. This 4000 acre tract originally belonged to Benedict 
Robinson and Thomas Hathaway, and was a part of their first 
purchase. This tract extended along the west side of the township 
northward from the Beddoe Tract to the Potter line. Robinson and 
Hathaway sold it to William Carter on the first of October, 1794, 
and he in turn conveyed it to Oliver Phelps. On the 9th of Febru- 
ary, 1795, Oliver Phelps deeded it to DeWitt Clinton, and Clinton 
deeded it to Peter B. Porter on the 5th of April, 1796. Porter re- 
deeded it to Oliver Phelps a few days later, and Phelps sold off 
portions of the tract to William Ogden and Heman Ely. They after- 
ward re-conveyed it to Phelps. In 1807 Phelps sold 1350 acres of the 
tract to Stephen B. Munn. As the State of Connecticut held a mort- 
gage on the tract, the mortgage was foreclosed by that State in 1814 
and the land was purchased by Gideon Granger, of Canandaigua, who, 
with a conveyance from Stephen B. Munn of his 1,350 acres, became 
the owner of the entire tract. On the 30th of June, 1816, Henry and 
Orrin Green purchased the entire tract of 4,000 acres for $12,000. 
They also obtained lot 56 of Guernsey's survey. 

Exclusive of the Beddoe and Green Tracts, which were taken off 
from the original township purchased by the Friend's representatives, 
the Friend's Tract then contained 4,480 acres. This tract extended 
along the east line of tbe Green Tract as its western boundary, 
northward to the Potter line and southward to the Beddoe Tract, 
while the eastern boundary was parallel with the east line of the 
County Poor House Farm, the original east line of the township of 
Jerusalem, which is about parallel with the west line of Henry R. 
Sill's land. 

It seems strange that the Friend's Tract is Ignored on all the 
County Maps so far as the writer has been able to inspect them, 
and "Guernsey's Survey" designated instead. This is decidedly mts- 
leading when one seeks to find the limits or boundaries of the orig- 
inal land tracts. Evidently, in the formative period of townships, 
Vernon included the greater portion of East Hill from the east line 
of the Friend's Tract, referred to, including all of Jerusalem eastward 
and southward to Bluff Point. On the east side a considerable por- 
tion of Bluff Point, to the southern portion belonging to Steuben 
County, was originally a part of Barrington. Out of the Friend'a 
Tract lot number 56 in the southwestern corner should be placed in 



44 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

the Green Tract, as it was purchased by Henry and Orrin Green 
when they bought the whole of the Green Tract of Gideon Granger 
in 1816. 

Likewise, lot number 55 should be excluded from the Friend's 
Tract, as this was originally the John Hatmaker Tract. He was an 
early original settler. A portion of the chimney of his log house was 
visible in the boyhood days of the writer. His Tract included all of 
the original lands of John Townsend, James S. Rogers, Samuel Davis, 
and Joseph N. Davis, on the north side of the highway. These lands 
are now owned respectively by Benjamin Stoddard, John Morrison, 
Fred. J. Burk, Guy M. Davis and George D. Davis. This Tract is not 
indicated on any of the County Maps to which the writer has ever 
had access. 

TOWNSHIP LOTS. 

In the surveys of the township the numbering' of lots appears to 
have been quite hap-hazard, no consecutive order having been main- 
tained from any apparent starting point. 

In the northwest corner of the township is Lot No. 1, and extend- 
ing southward along the western boundary line they run consecutive- 
ly to No. 9 at the premises of Herbert Robinson. Then starting again 
with No. 10 directly on the east the numbers run due north again, 
till the Potter line is reached; then south again consecu- 
tively to No. 27, in which lot is located lands of the late 
Cyrenus Townsend. Then starting again at the southwest corner of 
the township, upon which are the W. G. Paddock lands, t|hey extend 
north to Lot 9, thence south and north they extend in quite regular 
order to No. 32. 

Another numbering begins on the north side of the township a 
little east of the east line of the Moses Hartwell place with No. 1, 
and extends southward well up along the summit of East Hill, the 
County Poor House farm being on Lot No. 5 of this range which ex- 
tends to No. 9, when this series of numbering vanishes near Branch- 
port. 

Then another series of numbering begins with No. 1 on the west 
side of Bluff Point, a little south of west from the Heck School 
House and extends southward along the west side of the Point to its 
termination on Lake Keuka; then runs north again, centrally, along 
the Point till 29 is reached at the Ketchum estate; then beginning 
again with 73, one lot east of the last line, two other lots, 74 and 
75, are numbered west of it, and there the numbering of lots on 
Bluff Point ceases. 

Over in the central or valley portion of the township, again, the 
numbers start at 17, with the William H. Decker estate, and extend 
northward up t|he valley to the Potter line where No. 24 is reached; 
then southward again till 32 is attained on the former lands of Mrs. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 45 

Hulse. From here there is a skip to 41 on the west, and then they 
extend consecutively to the Potter line where 48 is the number, 
after which the range of lots extends due south again to No. 56, in 
which lot are located the Shattuck lands, those of Walter H. Mc- 
Cormick, and a portion of the lands of William W. Wright and the 
late Cyrenus Townsend. 

Going over to the east side of the township, after leaving No. 33 
on which is located two of the Wagener estates, on the extreme east 
side, near Penn Yan, the numbering skips again to 48 in which lot is 
included lands of the late John H. Butler on the East Branch of Lake 
Keuka, with "Kill-Kare" landing. Then the numbers run consecutive- 
ly northward to 56 at the Benton line. Then beginning at 64, upon 
which is the Mrs. Bennett place, on Bluff Point, they run due north 
again to No. 71 at the Benton line. 

Lots 73, 74, and 75, west of Lake Keuk^a, were in the original sur- 
vey of Barrington in the first range of Phelps and Gorham purchase. 

Lest to an outsider the numbering of lots in Jerusalem should 
appear to have been a crazy-quilt piece of business in plotting out 
the township, a brief explanation seems befitting. The township as 
now existing has been made up from at least six surveys of as many 
different parcels or tracts of land, and portions of three different 
townships were added or ceded to Jerusalem after its original bound- 
aries were defined, each retaining their respective numbers as they 
entered the fold. Why a re-numbering of lots was not had in syste- 
matic order after tjie final boundaries were fixed for the township, 
is a seeming paradox. It seems reasonable to suppose it was because 
no one or more was interested enough to move in the matter. 

RECESSION OF LAKE KEUKA. 

Some eminent scientists are of the opinion that the recession of 
the waters of Lake Keuka, though varying as the years go by, is 
gradually approaching a lower level which is likely to be maintained. 
This conclusion is undoubtedly warranted from manifest results. 
The lake has visibly receded to a lower average within the recol- 
lection of many who are living. This is manifest in the uncovering 
of some of the lands about the head of the North Branch, near 
Branchport, which in former years were perpetually submerged. 

In April, 1870, the water was at least four feet above the top 
of the State dam at Penn Yan. It was so high at Branchport that 
the roadway extending east from the village, was entirely overflowed, 
and the water came up into the wagon boxes as they passed through. 
The mill owners at Penn Yan and below, along the outlet stream, 
were alarmed lest their property should be washed away. In years 
past the level of the lake fluctuated like the temperature of our 
changeable climate. In December of the year referred to (1870), the 
water was three feet and nine inches below the dam at Penn Yan. 



46 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

showing that the lake had receded nearly eight feet since the pre- 
vious April. On October 5, 1872, it was five feet six inches below 
the top of the dam, and the boats on the lake could not get through 
the outlet of the lake to the docks at Penn Yan, and had to land at 
t,he Ark as the nearest attainable point. At that time the channel 
had not been dredged out by the State. The lowest record of the 
water line was in December, 1899, when the level was about six feet 
below the dam. For six years previous to the first of May, 1901, the 
water did not rise enough to flow over the dam, and then only about 
five inches. 

Plainly, the water supply of this region has been slowly decreas- 
ing for a number of years. The wild dash of freshets is not indicative 
of water sources. The flood has its origin in the vapors that ascend 
into other skies over the vast water expanse that covers the larger 
proportion of the globe in other climes, driven hither by the winds 
and atmospheric conditions. 

The streams are visibly vanishing. Of ttie many mills propelled 
by water power half a century and more ago, none remain on any of 
the minor streams. The Big Gully, in early pioneer days, maintained 
a sufficient water-flow to propel four saw mills in its short course of 
about three miles into the Guyanoga Valley. Now, there is not 
enough water in this rocky ravine in the long summer and early 
autumn days, of its own supply, to propel a churn. 

It requires no deductive reasoning or close analysis of cause and 
effect to find the origin of these radically changed conditions. The 
clearing away of the forests has wrought the havoc. 

When this entire region, including all the summits above Lake 
Keuka, was under the ice sheet, the torrents of water melting under 
it first reached the channel of the Susquehanna River, which was 
originally an earth fissure, and afterwards widened by the furious 
force of the great rushing waters. As the advancing ice, through 
many centuries of time, pushed on northward, the outlet system was 
changed to Lake Ontario, which was likewise a glacier-formed water 
bed. From the summit level of Lake Keuka the shore line descended 
rapidly in the wake of the age of ice. But when its natural level 
was reached after this great physical revolution of a continent, it 
has since receded only t|hrough the artificial work of man. 

Whether or not the earth is gradually parting with its great and 
indispensable element of water, may be debatable. Dr. Walser, of 
Zurich, states that a number of European lakes have wholly disap- 
peared within the last three centuries. He instances the canton of 
Zurich, which liad 149 lakes less than half a century ago, of which 
only 76 now remain. He states that the same tendency of disap- 
pearance is going on with some of the lakes of Russia and Germany. 

EARLY INDUSTRIES AND VILLAGES. 

In pioneer times the housewife baked the family bread in a tin 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 47 

oven opening to the fire-place, or in a kettle upon a heap of coals 
hauled out from under the blazing fagots and foresticks. Grist mills 
were few and far between, and some of the more remote inhabitants 
therefrom could not reach one short of from two to four days' 
travel. 

The currency of the country was pine shingles, oak staves, and 
pine lumber. The clothes of the pioneers and their families were 
manufactured from the wool direct as it was clipped from the 
sheep. The housewife and her daughters, if there were any, were 
the sole manufacturers. With a pMr of "cards," resembling some of 
thQ old-fashioned curry-combs, the wool was combed into rolls, the 
rolls were twisted into yarn upon thd spinning wheel, and then 
woven into cloth , upon the loom. Then the cloth was cut and 
sewed into clothing for every member of the family. Stockings and 
mittens were knit out of the yarn from the spinning wheel, and 
even caps for men and hoods for women in winter, so that the en- 
tire garmenture of the members of the household were supplied 
from the sheep, with the exception of a p^ir of cow-hide boots or 
shoes obtained from the nearest shoemaker or some journeyman 
who called at the house with his kit and made them. 

The soaial cheer of those days was mainly "bees,'' as they were 
called, which consisted of some of the neighbors getting together and 
in turn helping each other in the erection of their log habitations, 
clearing a fallow and burning the valuable timber in great pdles of 
logs to get rid of those glorious monarchs of the forest. Among the 
young people the "husking bees" at the log barn to shuck out the 
corn of a neighbor fortunate enough to raise any, was a popular 
form of amusement. They met together in a common cause and it 
afforded the young gallants the coveted opportunity to escort the 
pretty girls to their homes. School Jiouses, stores, shops, and mar- 
kets came later. 

Branchport the fourth village in size in Yates County, is situated 
entirely on the original Beddoe Tract. It was founded in 1831 when 
Spencer Booth and Samuel S. Ellsworth established the first store 
on the southwest comer where the main ro£».ds in the village cross 
each other. Judge Ellswortjh soon afterward retired from the busi- 
ness and Spencer Booth continued the store till 1866. The hamlet 
was given its name by Spencer Booth, who was the first postmaster. 

Solomon D. "Weaver erected the Keuka Hotel on the opposite 
corner in 1832. Judge Ellsworth afterward built a store on the 
northeast corner, where Burtch Brothers', store now is. William D. 
Henry put up a store and dwelling on the northwest corner where 
Herbert J. Fitzwater now has a hardware store. 

The stone school house at Branchport was erected in 1868. Mary 
Williams was the first teacher. 

Among the tradesmen at various times have been: William D. 



48 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Henry, Ellsworth & Booth, Joel Dorman, James H, Gamby, William 
and James A. Pelton, Peter Youngs, Lawrence & Smith, Harvey 
Andruss, Goodrich, Easton & Co., Solomon D. Weaver, Myron H. 
Weaver, James Ellsworth, George Johnson, Bradley Sherman, Fred- 
erick Paris, John Laird, Asa Pettengill, Peter H. Bitley, Clark 
Righter, Thomas Bitley, Frank Kidder, Bush & Andrews, Lynham J. 
Beddoe, James T. Durry, Franklin Wentworth, R. D. Phillipps. 

Branchport was incorporated as a village in 1867, compassing 
about a mile square in area. A few years later the incorporation 
was abandoned. It is the only village in Jerusalem ever incor- 
porated. 

John VanNess and Cyrus C. Crane erected a foundry which was 
afterward owned and conducted by Paris Brothers. Later it was 
turned into a spoke and basket factory which burned down a number 
of years ago. 

The first frame house erected in Branchport was the Beddoe 
house, originally painted brown, and was used as the first hotel in 
the village, accordiing to the recollection of Edgar Matteson, who has 
been a resident more than half a century. 

Charles H. Vail owned and operated a tannery and conducted a 
harness establishment in the village a number of years. William D. 
Henry originally built the tannery and conducted it for some time. 

Other industries and enterprises have been a grist mill by the 
shore of the lake at the Bay, put up by Peter H. Bitley and oper- 
ated for a number of years when it was destroyed by fire. R. D. 
P|hillipps afterward erected the present grist mill now owned by 
Clinton Hurlbutt. There was also a cooper shop by Reuben Poy- 
neer and a cabinet manufactory by John Miller. 

An early cabinet maker was William Hall, who conducted a shop 
in Guyanoga Valley. He made many chairs and other articles of 
furniture for some of the early residents. 

At a very early time there was an appearance of founding a 
village near where the Adams saw mill was located. There was 
established and in operation a store, grist mill, hotel, tannery, brick 
kiln, potash factory, backsmith shop, and a distillery. This was 
before Branchport was dreamed of or any road leading thereto. It 
was still a rival village when Branchport began to loom up. But the 
tide of trade ebbed and flowed and the prospective village in the 
Guyanoga Valley was slowly but surely absorbed by the village at 
the northern head of Lake Keuka. The location of the intended vil- 
lage in Guyanoga Valley was the site upon which the first grist mill 
was erected in Jerusalem. It was put up by Daniel Brown, junior. 
It was run by water power, had an overshot wheel, and in the boy- 
hood days of the writer it was still in operation. Ira Caple was the 
miller for a period of about ten years. Mr. Caple came from Otsego 
County when about 39 years of age. He conducted a mill at Yates- 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 49 

ville two years, and one in Italy Hollow a wlhile. Later he conducted 
a mill at Prattsburgh. He died in October, 1864, aged 79 years. He 
was a very capable as well as conscientious miller. 

As may be imagined, the early settlers suffered serious hardships 
and deprivations which the people of the present time but vaguely 
imagine. The absence of roads was keenly felt, and they had to 
travel long distances to mill or for their crude and scanty household 
or farming appliances. It was a tedious and sometimes perilous jour- 
ney through the forest, witjh no trail to follow, over fallen trees, 
crossing streams, and over almost impassable gullies. The first 
roada in Yates County led from Kashong to Smith's Mills, Dr. Ben- 
ton's saw mill, and the Friend's settlement. 

Near the Potter line, in the upper or northern part of Guyanoga 
Valley, another early prospective village was started. A tannery, 
brick manufactory, fulling mill, grist mill, carding mill, ashery, and 
three saw mills were in operation. The brick manufactory was on 
lands of Henry Hyatt, from, a superior bed of brick clay near the 
stream. Here was made the first brick in Yates County, and that 
portion of the field where it was made is still thickly strewn with 
brolijen bricks of those early days. It was confidently expected dur- 
ing several years in the first settlements of this northern valley, in 
and about where the mills alluded to were situated, that here was 
the destined site for a village of considerable importance. But the 
original Wagoner, founder of Penn Yan, bought land there and of- 
fered inducements to settlers and manufacturers to become identified 
with the movement to establish a place of trade and business in 
that location, and thus the enterprises and anticipations in the upper 
vale of Jerusalem vanished into the County Seat. 

PIONEER INCIDENTS AND EVENTS. 

The first settlers of Jerusalem were troubled and often in peril 
In consequence of the frequent raids of wolves. These voracious 
animals chose the cover of the darkness of night for their predatory 
ravages. They made fierce attacks upon the sheep folds at night, 
and only those most securely penned were saved from ravenous des- 
truction. Joseph N. Davis related how he used to help yard and se- 
cure the sheep at night to keep them from the wolves, when he was 
a boy on the Chase place. West Hill, which was originally owned by 
his father, Samuel Davis. The wolves would come in a drove and 
make vigorous and long persistent efforts to get at the sheep before 
they would give up their blood-thirsty intent. The sheep folds were 
made of strong timbers throughout, and the ravenous beasts seldom 
succeeded in effecting an entrance. 

The wolves had become such a menace to the settlers that in 
1810 a great wolfl hunt was resolved upon. Hunters stationed them- 
selves a few rods apart on a line extending from Penn Yan south- 



50 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

westward to Steuben County, about 18 miles, and then moving forward 
they drove the wolves into Ontario County. 

The deer ate the tobacco of the settlers' planting, and the squir- 
rels destroyed much of tjhedr grain. In 1815 a great squirrel hunt 
was organized, in which Jerusalem hunted against Middlesex and 
Potter. The hunt was continued a full week, and the woods steadily 
resounded with the continuous discharge of fire arms. The hunters 
carried along with them only the heads of the squirrels, and at the 
conclusion of the expedition they were measured up in baskets. 
Jerusalem hunters won the victory, exceeding Potter and Middlesex 
by several baskets full of the agile creatures' headls. 

Elijah Mai in owned the place where Henry Hyatt lives at the 
time of this writing. On this place there was reported to be buried 
treasure, and Moses Hartwell and others dug in one of the hillsides, 
a few rods sout^h of the town line road; but after, considerable dig- 
ging for quite a length of time no treasure was ever found, and 
they reluctantly gave up their "Treasure Island" project 

Amos Genung — Newton Genung's' father — helped clear the Anna 
Wagener place. He used eight yoke of steers for a team in breaking 
up the soil after clearing. He came from Otsego County. 

Isaac Fox originally bought 60 acres of land in Jerusalem and 
some land over the line in Italy. He made a clearing of a few acres 
near the Pulver school house in the edge of Italy. Desiring to seed 
it, he bought clover seed at $25 a bushel, of Newton Gage, who kept 
a store at Italy Hill. He had a beautiful copse of pine trees on the 
north and west sides of his house, which were greatly admired by 
many people. They were all cut down after he left the place. 

John Sherman kept a store at Harrisburg, where, in early days, 
a village was intended to be located, north of Italy Hill, in Jerusa- 
lem, now owned and occupied by John R. Andrews. John Sherman 
was the father of Bradley Sherman who kept store in. Branchport. 
John B. Harris kept a store at Harrisburg. The prospective village 
was abandoned a few years after its inception. 

Elnathan Botsford bought a tract of land in the nortjh part of 
Jerusalem. He came from Rhode Island when the country was all 
new here. 

The original territory known as Jerusalem, in 1789, constituted all 
that is within the present limits of the township, and Milo, Benton, 
and Torrey. 

Capt. John Beddoe was buried on a knoll near a small gully, 
southeast of Edward N. Rose's residence. 

According to the recollection of Mrs, Lucy Decker, Nathaniel 
Cothern built the saw mill that was known as "mud mill" on what is 
now Robert Herries' land. Cothern lived where Harris Cole former- 
ly resided. Mrs. Deckjer remembered her father, Benjamin Durham, 
telling about Indians encamping in summer on his land. They were 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 51 

friendly, and hunted and fished while they had their camp there. They 
■went away as soon as it began to get quite cold weather. Their 
camp was east of the residence of the late Mrs. Decker, in the woods 
near the creek. The Indians bought potatoes and other products of 
her father, to live on. They never disturbed any one. Benjamin Dur- 
ham knew Capt. John Beddoe, and Mrs. Decker said he used to laugh 
about what he did with some of the first beans he had ever seen 
growing, which he had planted in a clearing where Matthew Gil- 
more lived. As related, Capt, Beddoe seeing them as they first ap- 
peared above the ground, and thinking they had been planted the 
wrong way up, directed t^em to be taken up and replanted the other 
way down, which Mr, Durham saw Capt. Beddoe's hired man do. 

Mrs. Decker recollected when the first tree was cut where 
Branchport is, and she was the only one at the celebration of the 
opening of the electric railway who could remember this. She also 
remembered of having frequently seen deers running across above 
her father's bam. 

A Mr. Jagger was the first one buried at Brancjiport. 

Lawson Rogers set out the second vineyard on Bluff Point. His 
father, Thomas R. Rogers, was a pioneer who came from Seneca 
County. 

The first town meeting, after Jerusalem was set off from the old 
district, was held at the house of Daniel Brown, and George Brown 
was elected Supervisor. The first Supervisor of the original district 
of Jerusalem was Thomas Lee, in 1792. 

In 1840 there were three persons in Jerusalem between 90 and 
100 years old, and five Revolutionary soldiers: John Beal, Jacob 
Fredenburg, Castle Dains, Stephen Corwin, Elisha Benedict 

In 1841 the first town meeting was held at Branchport at the 
house of Solomon D, Weaver. In 1842 it was again held at Larze- 
lere's where it had been held several years previous to 1841. In 
1843 town meeting was again held at Branchport. Thereafter the 
place of holding town meeting alternated each year between the 
places named till 1847, when it was held at Branchport, and has 
been held there regularly ever since. 

THE GAGE SAW MILL. 

In pioneer days, when Western New York was still densely for- 
ested, the saw-mill was an industry established upon every stream of 
suffiqient; volume to maintain a dam. The upright saw, plying 
straight up and down, was the only one in use in early times. 

Upon a stream known in local annals and designated in history 
as The Big Gully, was the Gage Saw-Mill. This mill was a type of 
the early period of the preceding century, hence the writer has no 
apology to offer for the statement of facts pertaining to its situation, 
operation, or environments of which he had personal knowledge. 



52 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

TJie Gage Saw-Mill was located a few rods east of the Townsend 
and Benedict forks of the stream, just below a succession of falls. 
The mill-dam backed up to the foot of these falls. Upon each side 
of the stream, whereon the mill was placed, were high and steep 
banks. On the south bank was a log-way down which logs were 
tumbled close to the mill. Sometimes the logs were thrown down 
the bank a little farther up stream and then hauled into the mill- 
dam through a carved passage in the rocks, still to be seen. There 
was another log-way, on the north side of the dam, much steeper 
than the other, down which the logs descended directly into the dam. 

A bridge, with large logs flattened on one side for stringers, 
upon wjhich heavy plank were lain, spanned the stream on the north 
side of the mill, and over this bridge the lumber, as sawn, was con- 
veyed upon a wooden-railed tramway which extended to the summit 
of the north bank, the flat car containing the lumber being hauled 
from the mill over the bridge and up the north bank by means of a 
windlass, with ropes, drawn by a horse going around the circle till 
the tram car with its load of lumber reached the summit. Thence 
the lumber was conveyed away with teams. 

Upon the east side of the mill the slabs were thrown out till a 
huge pile accumulated far down, on the south bank of the stream, 
beginning close to the foundation of the mill. This great slab-pile 
became a landmark designating the point of an acute angle in the 
lands of the late Joseph N. Davis, of whach the center of The Big 
Gully was the northern boundary line. 

This saw-mill was the only one on The Big Gully which the 
writer recollects of seeing in operation, when a small boy, though 
there were three others on the stream during the pioneer period, as 
the Gage mill was operated to a later time than some others. Ere 
its operation was abandoned, some time in the '40's, the writer re- 
calls some weird and thrilling accounts of an occasional panther hav- 
ing been seen and heard in this region. The Big Gully, a great chasm 
deep down among the water-worn rocks, overspread by the dense 
shadows of the hemlocks, was a natural rendezvous of this terror of 
the forest. Foxes were still plentiful in the woods and ihe natural 
shelters along the rocky ledges of the great gorge afforded them a 
secure retreat. It was a fascinating pursuit, in those early days, to 
find the lair of the wily Reynard in the small and narrow caverns 
among the craggy solitudes. It was a pastime of the writer in early 
boyhood days, though he never found, or expected to find, a live fox 
therein, and probably would have fled in alarm if he had. 

The dam for this mill, was constructed of hewn logs, securely 
wedged in by the natural walls of rock to which the timbers were 
shaped. The stream was far less effected by the fluctuations of 
fresjhets and drouths in the days of the pioneer saw-mill than in later 
times. The dam of this mill was well calculated to withstand the 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 53 

uproar of the meltiug snows of early spring or the swift downpour 
of an electric rainfall in the full swing of summer. So well was the 
dam constructed that the greater portion of it remained intact years 
after the saw-mill was abandoned, decayed, and had vanished. Years 
after the mill disappeared the race-way from the dam to the over- 
shot wheel that propelled all the machinery of the mill, could be 
traced along the south side of the stream. 

The mill site, and the wild picturesque scenery all about this 
once throbbing energy of the past, were the favorite haunts of the 
writer when all the world was young and dreamy with callow flights 
of fancy stretching into the unseen and ever-alluringly unattainable. 

Though there is scarcely a vestige remaining of this exceedingly 
interesting industry of the days of almost universal log habitations 
dotting the clearings, its rise and fall was a type of the transition of 
human affairs. It touched the border of time following the pathetic 
retreat of the Children of Nature from their undisputed heritage 
through countless moons of time. It was the primal footstep from 
across the blue waves of the Atlantic resounding over a continent 
in planting the seeds of a new civilization. 

The Gage Saw-Mill wrought out a large quantity of lumber while 
in operation by hands long since turned to dust. Though crude in 
many of its appliances, the lumber was fairly well sawed out, straight 
and even, and in the plenteousness of pine it was quite uniform* 
clear stuff, and scarcely a board but would pass inspection in these 
days as first quality. 

The mill was built by Martin Gage, early in the preceding cen- 
tury. It was operated a while by a Mr. Baker. It was finally aban- 
doned in the latter part of the '40's, the decreased supply of logs, the 
vanishing of the forests, and the erection of other mills in various 
locations rendering its operation no longer profitable. It was a good, 
strong and well constructed mill for the latter pioneer days. 

The location of this mill was admirable for those days and the 
requirements of lumber manufacture while the great West Hill of 
this township was still densely wooded. It was situate in a natural- 
ly sheltered cove or deep depression,, close to the bed of the stream, 
while on every side were high banks, crowned to their highest eleva- 
tion with evergreen hemlocks which screened the ledges of rock with 
their perennial glory through centuries of time. The winds that 
swept the great sloping hillside all about this cloistered retreat, were 
softened into slumbrous symphonies floating through the lofty tree- 
tops. No tempest of wind could penetrate, except in lullaby, this 
embowered fastness in the eternal hills. In its rugged yet beautiful 
outlines the site and surroundings resembled the hollow of a great 
hand half closed in the stillness of the primal solitudes. The 
mill, gradually dismantling its external vestures through the muta- 
tions of time, with the uplifted but almost concealed rocks at the 



54 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

roots of the evergreen trees bounding its perpetually vernal horizon, 
alone in the silence, save the sonorous plaint of the slumbrous 
stream, formed one of the most delightful isolations over which the 
blue skies have ever come close to earth in any age or clime. 

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 

A rapture on the lonely shore." 

PIONEER RECOLLECTIONS OF THE GREEN TRACT 

On Lot 1 Horton Rounds was an early settler. Asahel Shattuck 
was an early settler on Lot 2. He was no relation to the other 
Shattucks of Jerusalem. Guerden Badger was an omginal settler on 
Lot 3. David Carley on Lot 4. Peter Simmons on Lot 5. Seth 
Hanchett and Enoch Remlington on Lot 6. Later, their location waa 
the land of Joseph N. Strong. Ira Green kept tavern on Lot 7. This 
was on what is now lands of Thomas W. Campbell. Clark Green 
lived where the late Freeman Bardeen resided. A man by the name 
of Wager lived where Ward Runner now resides. Later it was the 
Nathan Benedict place. Coddington brothers lived on the Hazard 
place. 

Samuel Sampson was an oniginal settler on what was afterward 
known as the widow Hall place. Sampson had a one room log house, 
and quite a large family of children. Samuel Davis related to the 
writer that when the children would get into a jangle, Sampson would 
order them "out in the other room." 

David Turner was a very early settler. James Almy bought lots 
afterward owned by Oscar Conley. 

The winter of 1835-6 was known as "the hard winter" for all 
settlers. It began snowing on thd 22nd of November, 1835, and tjhe 
snow kept falling till it was four feet deep on a level. It did not 
thaw or begin to break up till early the following spring, and then 
it disappeared very gradually without doing any damage. During 
that "hard winter," many of the settlers had to cut down forest trees 
for their cattle to browse on, and they had to shovel passage-ways 
for the cattle to get, to the fallen trees. One settler cut down a 
valuable maple "sugar bush" to keep his cattle from starving. 

Duping considerable time there was a dispute asi to the west 
line of the Green Tract. The townsjhip of Italy on one side and the 
Green Tract people on the other. Seven siirveys were made to de- 
termine the line. Finally, an old surveyor started from the foot of 
Canandaigua Lake and run through to the Pennsylvania line. This 
closed the controversy. Jabez French was the original surveyor of 
the Green Tract. In the subsequent surveys each surveyor made 
markings of his own on the trees, and some of the first settlers 
knew the markings of Jabez French. The east boundary of the 
Green Tract is along the east line of the lands of Martin Henshaw 
and the Jonathan Hazard estate, and would reach the Branchport 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 55 

road on the west line of the lands of Elwyn Haire. It will be re- 
membered that the south boundary of the Green Tract was the Bed- 
doe Tract, and north by the Potter line. The southwest corner lot 
of Guernsey's Survey (Lot No. 56) became a part of the Green 
Tract when Henry and Orrin Green made a purchase of the Tract 
which bears their surname. 



Jos.iah White, bom in Saratoga County in 1810, came to the 
Green Tract in 1835 and resided here till his death at upward of 90 
years. When he came to this region there was no road through 
from the white school house westward. There was then a stage 
route from Bath to Geneva. Mr. White's residence was by the road 
over which it passed. There was then a post office in Sherman's 
Hollow by the same name, and it was on the line of the stage route. 
There was no other post office after leaving Sherman's Hollow till 
Prattsburgh was reached. 

Mr. White stated to the writer that when he came to the 
Green Tract it was all dense woods not far south of where he lived, 
and that he cut off a large quantity of timber which was converted 
into lumber. He afterward cut timber upon 1,800 acres of what was 
known as the Goodhue Tract at Canisteo. The timber was got out 
in winter and in the spring it was rafted to New York. Consider- 
able timber was shipped over Lake Keuka and the Canal to Seneca 
Lake, thence by canal to Albany where the timber was made into 
what they called "York Rafts," to go down the Hudson River. Mr. 
White was in the timber and lumber business, exclusively, ton about 
twenty years. 

After he came to the Green Tract the mail stage by the way of 
Larzelere's westward, ran angling from the Shattuck place across the 
Ezra Loomis lands, and then diagonally through the woods to Italy 
Hill. 

LAKE KEUKA. 

The greater portion of Lake Keuka lies within the township of 
Jerusalem. It seems befitting, therefore, that a chapter should be 
devoted to this picturesque link in the beautiful chain of lakes in 
Western New York. 

Originally, and till within a generation ago, or thereabouts, this 
beautiful lake bore the rather homely designation of "Crooked Lake," 
when, by common consent, the appropriate Indian name of Keuka was 
restored to it. The generally accepted translation of the word is 
"Bended elbow In the water," though Albert Cusick, the historian, 
himself a Seneca Indian, gives it the same meaning as Cayuga, 
"Boats drawn out." It so resembles it in sound that it seems identi- 
cal. If this version be the real one it may refer to a portage, saving 
the long voyage around Bluff Point, possibly applying to the time 



56 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

when this promontory was an island and the moofings were the shel- 
tered short-cut between the North and East branches, 

0-go-ya-igo, another Indian name, has been applied by some writ- 
ers as an Aboriginal name of this lake. There are some reasons for 
thinking this true, in view of the fact that it has been, sometimes, 
erroneously regarded as the Indian name of Bluff Point, which, in 
the dialect of the Senecas, was Metawissa. 

There is an Indian legend of a time when Bluff Point was an 
island. This is a fair geological inference. The contour of the val- 
ley between its northern extremity and the southern limit of East 
Hill affords positive color to this probability. The fact that fresh 
water shells have been found along this valley is proof that it was 
once submerged beneath the water. The Aboriginal folk-lore pertain- 
ing to that period of time has a basis of probability, and the lake un- 
doubtedly had a different appellation when the Red Men moored their 
canoes along this portion of the encircling waters. 

It is a certainty that Keuka was one of the glacial lakes result- 
ing from the melting of the ice-sheet as it receded in a northeasterly 
direction. The summit level above this lake is 1,125 feet above the 
sea, and this ridge lessens in height continually to the northward, 
indicating that the summit was originally a water-shed, the southern 
flow finding an outlet through the Chemung and Susquehannah rivers 
to the sea; while the outlet of the lake found its way northward 
through the Guyanoga Valley which it filled, reaching Lake Ontario 
through Kashong Creek and Seneca River. 

The prominent position of Bluff Point, dividing the lake into the 
North and East branches, while the other branch extends from the 
termination of Bluff Point to Hammondsport, is quite suggestive of 
Indian illustration. 

Lake Keuka is about 22 miles in length from near Penn Yan to 
Hammondsport. The North Branch from the extremity of Bluff Point 
to Branchport is about sevea miles in length. The average width of 
this branch of the lake is about three-fourths of a mile. There is not 
another lake in the State of similar formation. The shore line is 
generally a gentle slope and easily reached. 

A variety of fish are found in the waters. Trout, pike, pickerel, 
bass, perch, pumpkin-seed or sun-fish, bull-heads and suckers abound. 
In early settlement times eels were also prevalent. But according 
to observations of local fishermen, the dams on the outlet, or Minne- 
setah River, prevented the eels from going up stream farther and 
enteringi the lake to spawn. This, with the number continually caught 
out of the lake, steadily diminished them till not an eel has been 
taken from the lake in many years. 

There was a tradition among the Aborigines that once upon a 
time one of the Sons of the Forest offended one of the Indian deities 
to such a degree that as a punishment and a warning to future genera- 
tions, on account of the transgression, he pronounced a malediction 



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HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 57 

(Upon the lake, and, in order to appease his wrath he gave forth a 
decree that every year thereafter a human life should be sacrificed 
by drowning in its waters. 

It is related by some of the early inhabitants that wild animals 
would occasionally plunge into the lake and swim across it. Samuel 
Davis, a well-known pioneer, related to the writer that on one occa- 
sion he saw a deer that was pursued by dogs, plunge into the lake 
and swim across it near where Branchport now is. In relating this 
incident, he stated that in swimming such distances the deers would 
sometimes cut their own throats with the sharp front of their hoofs 
as they propelled them out of the water in the effort to keep their 
heads above the surface, thereby striking the keen edges of their 
hoofs under their jaws. 

Lake Keuka has been the scene of many interesting incidents and 
events. Narratives founded upon unrecorded actualities could be 
woven into thrilling scenes of action under the skilled hand or inspired 
pen of some gifted romancer like James Fenimore Cooper, who in- 
vested Otsego Lake with the charm of literary fame, by rehabilitating 
the Aboriginal people upon its shores. Modern encampments could 
largely contribute local color to the texture and intensity of "o'er 
true tales." But however realistic, they are not within the scope of 
historic presentation, either successively or digressively. 

ON LAKE KEUKA. 

(From the Rochester Post Express, Sept. 5, 1908.) 
Travelers who have seen nearly all the beautiful and picturesque 
lakes of the wonderfully variegated State of New York, with whom 
the writer has conversed at times here and there, have generally 
concurred in conceding the palm to Lake Keuka. In the growing 
season, its beautifully sloping shores, fringed and adorned with in- 
viting shade trees, are a perpetual feast to the appreciative eye. The 
profusion of vineyards — hundreds of acres — all along and above the 
borders of the lake, are consonant with its fame. As the season ma- 
tures and mellows, the scene is embellished at intervals above the 
enchanting shore line with a fine setting of gilt as the wheat fields 
just turning to golden yellow are seen basking in the sunlight. The 
smooth, green, blue water is a liquid dream of summer glory, gor- 
geously blended with the sylvan shores, and in fancy one can scarce- 
ly persuade himself where the water ends and the shore begins. 

Ofteru sitting at the stern of a steamer and watching in the wake 
of the rippling waves following after and constantly widening their 
panoramic path, one is reminded of a line in Tennyson's fragment 
entitled "The Eagle," to whose pervading eye 

"The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls," 
as the moving vision continually shifts in sunshine and shadow. All 



58 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

about the lake and land are the hues of enchantment that are neither 
blue nor green, but both. 

In the distance looms a white sail, with the terraced shores as a 
relieving background against the invisible depths above and below. 
Lazy skiffs loitering on the mirrored surface in the midst of mirages 
of the vine-clad and tree-canopied margins appear on the mazy map 
Unfurling with every throb of the steamer. The shores seem dancing 
in the cool depths of the water, as if proud and joyous of the appre- 
ciative eye that revels in their tranquil offerings. 

A rainbow glints its seven colors in the spray of the wheel-house 
as the steamer veers across the lake. 

On, around the great bended elbow. Bluff Point, or in Indian 
parlance, Metawissa, looming nearly 800 feet above the lake, is a ma- 
jestic vision. It is a bold relief to the quiet, dreamy shores. It 
stands like a sentinel upon the watch-tower of the sky, keeping guard 
over the three branches of the lake laving its base in their liquid 
bosom. Centuries of time have cast their trophies of storm and calm, 
of sunshine and shadow, of frost and heat upon this central arena 
since the gigantic glacier ground out its bed in the highlands of 
Yates and Steuben. 

From this commingling of the branches the steamer glides on in 
the direction of the pole-star to the northern head of the Keuka 
waters. The North Branch of the lake is a gem in the bosom of the 
heaving hills. It would be a charming lakip by itself. Its shores 
abound in beautiful coves and capes upon which shady bowers invite 
to rest and dream and enjoy the sweet siesta of life. One may 
easily imagine this is the Lotus Land of poesy and philosophy, of 
song and story, and all the ideals that have come down through the 
ages from the water lilies of Egypt which were held sacred as the 
symbol of creation. The setting sun pours its plenitude of all imag- 
inable hues upon the shimmering surface of the lake as if the bars 
of glory were opened and let down the effulgence of supernal regions. 

In the midst of these random reflections the steamer throbs in 
subdued pulsation^ as it rounds into Bar Bay and lands at the iden- 
tical shore line of the original Indian village situated here many 
moons ago, close by the village of Branchport. 

MILES A. DAVIS. 

The schooner, "Sally," was the first regular liner over the lake, 
a sailing vessel under command of Gen. George McClure, calculated 
for a capacity of 30 tons, the boat being designed to accommodate 
farmers and tradesmen. The freight rate was sixpence per bushel 
and flour two shillings per barrel. The boat also conveyed passen- 
gers. 

The first steamboat that navigated Lake Keuka was the "Keuka," 
in July, 1835, under command of Capt. Joseph Lewis. Later it was 
commanded by Capt. Phillip Baldwin. It was a kind of catamaran 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 59 

vessel, a sort of double boat with a big wheel in the center. It was 
about 80 feet long and 30 feet wide and had a speed capacity of about 
eight miles an hour. It made one round trip daily between Ham- 
mondsport and Penn Yan. The fare each way was one dollar. No 
coal was in use for several years after the "Keuka" began, its trips. 
Wood alone was used to get up and maintain steam. The "Keuka" 
was in operation about eleven years. 

The "Steuben" was the next lake steamboat in 1846, which navi- 
gated the water about nineteen years, or till 1864, when it was des- 
troyed by fire at the Penn Yan landing. 

Capt. Allen Wood became a factor in Lake Keukla navigation 
about 1865, in command of the "George R. Youngs," the name of 
which was changed to "Steuben" in 1873. 

Another steamer named "Keuka," built at Geneva in 1867, was 
operated on the lake till 1875, when it was sold and conveyed to the 
St Lawrence River. It was a screw propeller. 

The side-wheel steamer "Yates" began trips over the lake in 
1872 and was run till 1883, when it was burned at Penn Yan. 

The "Lulu" was built in Hammondsport in 1878 and run on the 
Jake several years. It was a side- wheel steamer. 

The "Urbana" was constructed at Hammondsport in 1880, 

The "Holmes," another side-wheel steamer, was built at Ham- 
mondsport in 1883. 

The "West Branch" was built at Hammondsport the same year, 
and was taken to pieces in 1902. 

The steamer "Halsey," in 1887, was one of the vessels constructed 
by William L. Halsey to carry on the sharp competition of those 
years in the lake navigation which resulted in putting steamboat pas- 
senger fares down to ten cents between any landings or the length 
of the lake. In those years navigation was extended over the North 
Branch of the lake to Branchport. 

The name of the "Halsey" was changed in 1904 to "Steuben," 
and is still plying on the lake. 

The "Mary Bell," a twin screw steamer built in 1902, was 
changed in name in 1905 to "Penn Yan," and is now one of the com- 
pany boats on the lake. 

The "Cricket" was a twin screw steamer built at Penn Yan in 
1904, and was run over the lake till the close of the season of 1908, 
and in the following winter was destroyed by fire at Hammondsport. 

The earliest navigation of Lake Keuka was the log dug-out or 
the birch bark canoe of the Indian. The first white man to navigate 
the lake was Captain John Beddoe, in a flat boat, on the way with 
his household goods to establish his home on the well-known Beddoe 
Tract in 1798. It was some years afterward ere anything like regular 
flat boat navigation was carried on. 

Sail vessels began to navigate the lake in 1833 to quite an extent, 



60 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

or about twenty-five years after the first regular sailing liner run at 
stated intervals. 

The liveliest activity in navigation on Lake Keukia began in 1883, 
when William L. Halsey came into the lake carrying trade and a 
company was formed under the name of Crooked Lake Navigation 
Company. In the same year they built the Holmes and West Branch, 
and four years later the Halsey. Then the intense competition con- 
tinued, which set people far and wide discussing the sharp rivalry 
in Lake Keuka navigation, and probably did more to attract and 
popularize travel for pleasure over the lake than ever took place on 
any body of water of similar dimensions in the State. But for the 
death of William L. Halsey, later, the contest was likely to have con- 
tinued till the capital of one or the other company was drained to 
the limit. 

Soundings of the depths of the lake demonstrate the greatest 
depth of water to be at the junction of the three branches, and the 
shallowest part of the lake is at and for some distance up from the 
foot near Penn Yan, where an immense harvest of ice is obtained 
annually in late winter time, filling large ice houses thereabouts and 
supplying many carload shipments to other localities. 

Many score of summer cottages dot the shores at frequent inter- 
vals along the lines of navigation and especially that portion of the 
East Branch reached direct by the electric railway projected from 
Penn Yan into Jerusalem, terminating at Branchport. These cottages, 
in summer, are usually filled to their capacity with people who love 
the beautiful scenery of lake and shore which has made Lake Keuka 
famous far and wide. 

POST OFFICES. 

Previous to the introduction of rural delivery there were eight 
postoffices in Jerusalem: Branchport, Bluff Point, Keuka College, 
Friend, Guyanoga, Cinconia, Kern and Stever. The last three were 
located on Bluff Point. As a result of rural delivery, only three post 
offices remain in Jerusalem: Branchport, Bluff Point and Keuka 
College. There are three rural delivery routes from Branchport and 
two from Bluff Point postoffice at Kinney's Corners. 

The first postofiice in Jerusalem was established in 1824, in Guy- 
anoga Valley, near where the Adams mills were located, Nathaniel 
Cothern was the first postmaster. The postofiice was designated as 
Jerusalem. 

In 1827 the Jerusalem postofiice was moved to the hotel of Henry 
Larzelere, and he was postmaster about twenty years, when it was 
discontinued. The former hotel building in which the postoffice was 
located. Is still standing at the four comers of the highways and is 
one of the landmarks of the valley. 

There was a postoffice by the name of Jerusalem established 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 61 

about 1802 or '03 at Abraham Wagener's house in what is now Penn 
Yan, which was then on a post route between Canandaigua and New- 
town (now Elmira) which he was instrumental in establishing. All of 
what is now Penn Yan was then in the region known as Jerusalem, 
its boundaries not being well defined till after Ontario County was 
formed, of which it was a part till Yates County was founded. Abra- 
ham Wagener was postmaster there about fourteen years. 

A postoflRce was established at Kinney's Corners under the name 
of Bluff Point, in 1850. Robert Chissom was the first postmaster. 

A postoffice was established at Sherman's Hollow in 1841. Isaac 
Haight was the first postmaster. 

Branchport postoffice was established in 1831 or '32. Spencer 
Booth was the first postmaster. Other postmasters since have been: 
Bradley Sherman, Peter Youngs, Almeda L. Wentworth Youngs. The 
present postmaster is Nellie A. McCaul, 

The stage mail route between Penn Yan and Prattsburgh was 
established about 1832 and was continued till 1897. Sometime after 
the completion of the electric railway the stage made trips between 
Branchport and Prattsburgh. As each of these places is the terminus 
of a railway and there is no facility for public convenience or travel 
for many miles either way over the country between, a public pas- 
senger conveyance once or twice a week regularly is desired by the 
people. 

The old mail-stage route of eighteen miles between Penn Yan 
and Prattsburgh was the only mail in and out of Italy Hill, Branch- 
port and Kinney's Corners (Bluff Point postoffice), and its daily ar- 
rival at these postoffices was eagerly awaited by scores of people. 
George Colgrove operated this mail-stage route a number of years — 
longer than anyone else — and he was a familiar figure to all the pat- 
rons along the line. In all seasons, weather, or conditions of roads, 
he bravely made his way through. 

THE PLANK ROAD. 

The Branchport and Penn Yan Plank Road corporation was or- 
ganized June 20, 1849. It was abandoned about thirty years later, in 
1879, as the company could not get their charter renewed by the 
Legislature. 

The amount of capital stock was $12,000, consisting of 120 shares 
of $100 each. 

The holdings of the corporation were managed by six directors: 
John N. Rose, Spencer Booth, Henry Rose, Benedict W. Franklin, 
Lynham J. Beddoe, Dexter Lamb. 

Length of the road, a fraction less than eight miles. 

Stockholders: Henry Rose, 25 shares; John N. Rose, 25 shares; 
Lynham J. Beddoe, 5 shares; Spencer Booth, 20 shares; Dexter 
Lamb, 5 shares; G. B. Kidder, of Geneva, 25 shares; Henry B. Ben- 



62 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

nett, of Penn Yan, 5 shares; Benedict W. Franklin, of Penn Yan, 10 
shares. 

Gate keepers appointed in February, 1876, John Nickerson, gate 
number one; John Clark, gate number 2. 

At the annual meeting, May 3, 1862, the following were elected: 
Directors, Henry Bradley, Isaac Purdy, Solomon D. Weaver, Franklin 
E. Smith, Andrew Oliver, Spencer Booth. The directors chose Henry 
Bradley, president; Franklin E. Smith, secretary and treasurer. 

In 1862 T. Owen Purdy was elected pathmaster over the Plank 
Road at the town meeting, and the following year M. B. Andrews 
was elected overseer. Solomon D. Weaver was chosen president of 
the road in place of Henry Bradley, resigned, in 1863. 

During several years previous to the expiration of the charter, 
as sections of the plank became decayed or were worn out, 
gravel was substituted. Finally, it could no longer be considered a 
plank road. People traveling over it complained about the toll road, 
as considerable portions of it was but little, if any, better in general 
condition than other highways. While plank was maintained over 
the entire thoroughfare, it was considered a great public convenience 
during the season of bad roads over the country. Otherwise the peo- 
ple protested. 

FIRST RAILWAY IN JERUSALEM. 

The construction of the Penn Yan, Keuka Park and BranchjMjrt 
Railway in 1897 was one of the most important public enterprises ever 
projected in the township. It marked a new and steadfast advance- 
ment in local markets and in passenger transportation and shipping 
facilities for all this and adjacent regions of the country. 

The construction work on this electric road was begun in Penn 
Yan on Friday, May 7, 1897. About eighty men were first employed 
in grading and fitting the track, which was soon afterward increased 
to upward of 100. George W. Houck, of Worcester, Mass., had charge 
of the track construction. During the progress of the work from 
one-fourth to one-third of a mile was daily completed. The road 
was opened for passenger traffic as far as Keuka College on August 
14, and to Branchport October 4, 1897. The entire line was open for 
freight and express three days later. 

The total length of the road is about eight miles. The main 
highway is followed the entire distance except about one mile. 

Both track and overhead work were constructed in the most sub- 
stantial form, a 70 pounds to the yard of rails, and the feed wire 
300,000 circular miles capacity, being a cable of 37 copper wires, 
wrapped and insulated. 

The road is equipped with a large power plant about half way 
between each terminus. There are two powerful Corliss engines, 
each with 18,000 pound drivers; two Walker generators, making over 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 63 

650 revolutions a minute; two large Hartford test boilers, fitted with 
condensers, pumps, &c. There is a car barn 100 by 50 feet in size, 
which will hold fifteen cars. 

The cars are each supplied with two Westinghouse motors of 50 
horse power and K 11 controllers and are lighted and heated by 
electricity. Each car costs about $3,800 when completed. 

The road is of indispensable service to the public. It had been in 
operation only about a year when the passenger traffic up to that 
time amounted to more than 100,000 fares. During the first twenty 
days after the road was open for freight, more than 2,000,000 pounds 
had been transported over the line. 

The company has freight stations at Branchport, Bluff Point, and 
Park Landing. An excellent dock is at the latter point on Lake 
Keuka. The Park there has a pavilion large enough for 1,000 people. 

No express company is represented or doing business on this 
railway or any portion of it, for some reason not generally under- 
stood. 

COUNTY POOR HOUSE AND FARM. 

As the Yates County Almshouse is located on East Hill, in Jeru- 
salem, it is one of the institutions in the township which enters into 
a part of its history. 

The Poor House Farm consists of 185 acres. Estimated value, 

$8,000. 

In 1873 Charles J. Townsend was County Superintendent of the 
Poor. He stated in his report to the Board of Supervisors that year 
that there were 33 inmates— 19 males and 14 females. Besides the 
33 there were 21 other paupers maintained in the house for more or 
less time during the year, making a total of 54. Of this total there 
were 31 males and 23 females. Of the total, 34 were natives of the 
United States and 20 were of foreign birth. Of the foreigners, 16 
were from Ireland. The cost of maintaining the total was $3,284.56, 
or $1.81 per week over and above the products of the Poor House 
Farm. In this sum is included the keeper's salary, hired help, phy- 
sicians and medicines. 

This was previous to the erection of the present stone structure. 
In his report that year as to the condition of the poor house (in 1873) 
Mr. Townsend made use of the following forcible language: 

"It is the worst, meanest old hovel that ever bore the name of 
almshouse— not as good as Captain Jack's home in the lava beds, 
according to the best Information I have of them. It is a standing 
disgrace to Yates County, and there should be a new one built or 
abandon the poorhouse system and let each town take care of ts 
own poor, or turn them out to grass as was Nebuchadnezzar of old. 
The inmates and keeper have to move their beds when it storms; 
the rats and other vermin have pretty near a warrantee deed of the 



64 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

old trap, and it is dangerous and filthy in the extreme. The farm pro- 
duces fairly; the barn is good; but deliver me from the house!" 

In 1874, the following year after the above sharp comments 
appeared, the Board of Supervisors passed resolutions to investigate 
and report as to the advisability of building a new County Poor 
House. 

In 1875 the committee, consisting of James M. Clark, Charles W. 
Taylor and Mason L. Baldwin, appointed to mature plans and specifi- 
cations for a new County Poor House, reported: 

"Examined ground and procured plans and estimates No. 1, to 
cost about $10,400." 

In 1905, according to the Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors, 
the capacity of the Yates County Almshouse was 75. Estimated 
value of buildings, $18,000. The house building is a concrete struc- 
ture, three stories high, with sub-story basement. Heated by steam; 
low pressure boiler in basement. Lighted by kerosene oil lamps. 
Water supply, a well on the premises and springs (covered) furnish 
water which is pumped to tank in the attic holding 50 barrels of wat- 
er. 

Twelve cows kept; products all for inmates. 

Rooms are set aside for the sick as needed. 

Number of inmates (October, 1905) were, males 27, females 12, 
total 39. 

Located about five miles west of Penn Yan. 

As appears from the published record of county affairs, the pres- 
ent County Poor House was erected in 1878. 

VALUATION, EQUALIZATION, TAXATION. 

In 1880 the number of acres of land assessed in Jerusalem was 
36,238. Price per acre, as assessed, was $22.01. Price per acre as 
equalized by the Board of Supervisors, $26.06. State tax, that year, 
$3,424.67. School tax, $1,538.64. County tax, $3,004.03. Total taxes 
that year, $7,967.34. There was expended that year for roads and 
bridges $800. For the support of the poor, $400. For town audits, 
$527.85. 

In 1881, the number of acres assessed was 36,161. Price per 
acre as assessed, $22.16. Price per acre as equalized, $26.23. State 
taxes, $1,555.53. School taxes, $1,598.04. County taxes, $3,790.44. 
Total taxes, $6,944.01. 

In 1888 the number of acres assessed, 35,778. Price per acre as 
assessed, $42.96. As equalized, $45.40. Equalized total value of land, 
$1,654,030. Personal property, $172,500. Total equalized valuation, 
$1,901,288. State taxes, $3,234.06. School taxes, $1,996.34. County 
taxes, $3,271.63. Town audits amounted to $791.27. Bills paid to 
Willard Asylum for care and maintenance of insane poor, $809.86. 
Appropriated for roads and bridges, $2,250. For board of poor in 
County House, $398.62. For support of town poor, $500. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 65 

In 1890 the number of acres assessed, 36,355. Assessed per acre, 
$36.42, Equalized, $41.09. State tax, $2,444.67. School tax, $1,955.74. 
County tax, $3,613.82. Town audits amounted to $1,195.49. Support 
of poor, $300. Appropriated for roads and bridges, $800. County 
poor fund, $456.43. 

In 1895 the number of acres assessed, 35,534. Assessed, $31.44 
per acre. Equalized, $38 16. Personal property, $53,340. State tax, 
$2,059.74. County tax, $4,782.08. School tax, $1,462.72. Town audits 
amounted to $1,262.47. 

In 1905, the number of acres assessed, 35,967, Assessed, $30 per 
acre. Equalized the same. Personal property assessed $15,700, 
State tax, $208.51. County tax, $3,190.23. Town audits amounted to 
$1,198.77. The dog tax that year amounted to $79. The total un- 
worked highway tax in the town amounted to $21. There was appro- 
priated as highway fund $1,000, and $150 for new road on Bluff Point. 
The county poor fund that year, as an indebtedness against the town, 
was $627.14. The total tax, $7,366.64. The total equalized value of 
property, assessed and subject to taxation, $1,400,372. The special 
franchise equalized at $33,400. This was the valuation of the electric 
railway franchise in Jerusalem, upon which taxation was based. The 
decimal upon which taxation was reckoned was .00982149. There is 
$11,450 of church property exempt from taxation in Jerusalem, be^ 
sides farms and houses and lots exempt on the ground of having been 
bought with pension money, or because of being owned by a minister, 
which amounts to $16,750. This does not include the Yates County 
Almshouse or Keuka College and grounds, which are also exempt. 
The tax rate on $1,000 of assessed valuation in 1899 was $9.61. 

SPRINGS. 

There are some excellent and valuable springs of water in Je- 
rusalem which will compare favorably with any other locality. One 
of the best is near the northern head of Lake Keuka, on land that 
belonged to the late George S. Weaver, known as Red Jacket Spring, 
so named from the fact that the noted Indian orator used to sit 
around by this spring with other Indians and partake of the ever 
flowing water. According to "Indian Races of North and South 
America," by Charles DeWolf Brownell, Red Jacket's Aboriginal 
name was Saguoaha. 

In January, 1891, Mr. Weaver sent some of the water from this 
spring to the chemical laboratory of the Albany Medical College for 
analysis, and the following was the report: "Color and appearance, 
transparent light greenish tint, slightly opalescent. Odor at 100 de- 
grees Farenheit, slight. Properties, chlorine 0.30, free ammonia 
0.0006; albuminoid ammonia 0.0022; nitrates, none; total, solids, 7.30; 
loss on ignition 2.20; mineral matter 5.10. Remarks: chlorine, free 
and albuminoid ammonia, all total solids low. Nitrates absent. Good 
water. W. G. Tucker." 



66 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

There are several sulphur springs along the east side of the 
North Branch of the lake which would be of great value if made easy 
of access and utilized. 

A great spring flows out on the old Abraham Wagener place on 
Bluff Point. Quite a stream runs from it. Never fails. There are 
other splendid springs on Bluff Point which are a surprise to people 
who have an idea that the Point is lacking in flowing springs of as 
pure water as the earth affords. 

Another fine flowing spring of perpetual water, of most excellent 
quality, juts out near the residence of the late Perry Adams. 

The spring on the late Cyrenus Townsend place, on East Hill, 
was known among the early settlers far and wide as one of the best 
springs in the country. Quite a stream flows from it and the water 
never fails. At this spring, in very early times, there was a distil- 
lery, and Red Jacket, who in common with his race had a liking for 
fire-water, used to pass days at a time about this spring and the 
allurements of the distillery. 

When the late John A. Miller put down a driven well in front 
of his blacksmith shop in Branchport, he tapped a flowing spring, or 
it might be called a pulsing artery, of sulphur-charged water — a 
fountain from which multitudes of people refresh themselves daily, 
the year 'round. 

There are many other superior springs, above the ordinary, 
abounding in Jerusalem which are too well-known to the people to 
need special mention. 

STREAMS. 

The largest stream of water in Jerusalem is the creek flowing 
southward through the Guyanoga Valley and entering Lake Keuka at 
the head of the North Branch. This stream has been designated by 
various names. Jemima Wilkinson gave it the name of Brook 
Kedron, in keeping with her Biblical application to things generally 
pertaining to the New Jerusalem. Some of the early settlers called 
it Sugar Creek, because of the many sugar maple trees growing 
along its course. But this was too sweet a name to last, especially 
as every "sugar bush" speedily vanished under the steady stroke of 
the ax-men. Long ago this name became obsolete. Finally, it went 
flowing on to join the pellucid lake, in rhythm with the ever recur- 
ring seasons, nameless, and known only by the unmeaning term of 
"The Creek." The writer of these pages proposes that it be re- 
christened and become known by the beautiful and significant Indian 
name by which it was known among the Seneca Nation, in their sym- 
bolical language, as Gah-hun-da. 

This important stream of water has played a most prominent 
part in the industrial history of Jerusalem from the inception of the 
first settlement, which was along its borders, to the present time. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 67 

Saw mills, grist mills, fulling mills, brick manufacture, asheries, &c., 
were established along its course. 

Gah-hun-da was a favorite fishing ground of the Sons of the For- 
est, as it was of the pioneers, and on to the present generation who 
still love to lure the fish, scanty as they are, with the spirit of Isaac 
Walton surging in their arteries. 

The waters of Gah-hun-da have their source on Lot 81, a short 
distance south-east of the number 6 school house in Benton. The 
stream has four other tributaries that join it before it leaves Ben- 
ton. One of them originates in a spring on the Joseph Wright place, 
near the west line of Benton, on Lot 101. Another tributary rises on 
the Carroll place on Lot 106. Another near the number 6 school 
house on the Carroll place. The other affluent rises on the east side 
of the McAlpine place on Lot 79. This stream flows through the 
south-east corner of Potter and enters Jerusalem on Lot No. 1 a 
short distance south-west of Yatesville, crossing the town line high- 
way. It flows about four and one-half miles through Jerusalem from 
north to south, according to the survey of Lots, to mingle its waters 
with Lake Keuka. 

The Big Gully may fairly be considered the second stream of 
Importance in Jerusalem, and is, generally, the largest tributary to 
the Gah-hun-da. It has its primal source high up on the West Hill 
range upon nearly the highest land in the township, formerly be- 
longing to Isaac Fox. This headwater or branch is known as the 
Benedict Gully till it reaches The Forks, where it joins the Townsend 
branch which has one of its sources upon or above the lands of 
Fred. Robinson, formerly the Joseph N. Strong place, near the Italy 
line, in the extreme western part of the township, flowing easterly 
by the Green Tract school house and through the lands of the late 
Freeman Bardeen, and joins the Townsend branch of The Big Gully 
a short distance north-east. Another important tributary of the 
Townsend branch has its source on lands formerly belonging to John 
Townsend, senior, south of the public highway leading to the Green 
Tract. The land upon which it rises is a water-shed, another stream 
rising from it and flowing southward into the Cohocton River. Still 
another tributary has its source on lands of Eberel E. Smith, and 
flows through lands of Lewis C. Campbell and joins the Townsend 
branch a short distance east. At The Forks, where the Townsend 
and Benedict branches join, is the real beginning of The Big Gully. 
From The Forks, the Big Gully flows in a generally eastern direction 
to the Guyanoga Valley where it flows into the waters of Gah-hun-da 
at the former mill dam of the Adams saw mill which was torn down 
a number of years ago. 

The next stream from the West Hill range has its origin on 
lands of the late Joseph N. Davis, about three-fourths of a mile west 
of the stone school house which it passes in its descent, and flows 



68 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

on through the former lands of John Ingraham. the Chase estate, 
lands of Edgar E. Davis, Warren A. Davis, and the Dwight Dickinson 
estate to the Guyanoga Valley stream previously described. 

Another gully stream of some magnitude has its sources on lands 
of the late Hanford Perry, of Mrs. Sutton, Harry Clayton, and 
Charles Hall, better known as the David Smith Gully, which comes 
out into the Guyanoga Valley north of Frank Botsford's lands, upon 
the north side near the mouth of which is a glacial moraine of some 
extent. 

A considerable stream is concentrated from the Big Marsh, In 
the south-west part of Jerusalem, and flows in a south-south-westerly 
direction, by the village of Prattsburg, and flows into the Cohocton 
River near Kanona. This stream, known as Five Mile Creek, has at 
least six affluents, five of which rise in Jerusalem; one in the west- 
ern part of the town on lands of Mrs. Andruss, two others on lands 
of the late Josiah White, another on lands of Clarence Campbell, and 
the other on lands of John Haire. The last tributary of this stream 
flows through the extreme south-western comer of Jerusalem from 
Pulteney, and joins the main stream on lands of W. G. Paddock at 
the western boundary line. 

A stream rises in the north part of Jerusalem on lands of the 
late Martin Henshaw, and flows north-easterly through a portion of 
the Bartleson Sherman estate and that of D. Munger and passes 
near the "Old Fort" school house, thence northerly through a por- 
tion of Potter into Flint Creek. The Indian name of Flint Creek 
was Ah-ta-gweh-da-ga. Upon this stream was the saw mill of Martin 
Henshaw, and upon a small tributary of it, close to the Potter line, 
was the Bartleson Sherman saw mill, the township line being 
directly across the pond. 

Another stream rises in the south-western portion of Jerusalem 
and flows eastward, a little south of the Stever school house, through 
lands of William Hunt, and flows directly into the North Branch of 
Lake Keuka. An early saw mill was located on this stream in a 
wild picturesque spot where the gorge is deep down from the sum- 
mit of the rocks. It was on the premises of Augustus Peterson. 

On the East Hill range a gully of considerable magnitude, with 
very steep high banks, comes tumbling its swirl of waters from the 
summit of the great hill and enters the Gah-hun-da a few rods south 
of the former Harris Cole residence. 

Another stream, characterized by high banks and a water course 
that has worn its way deep down in the rocks, starts from high up 
on East Hill, on the Sheppard estate and flows south-westerly 
though the Pearce and Bitley estates, entering the valley stream. 

Another stream rises on the Willett place and flows westerly into 
the valley stream on the former Simeon Cole place. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 69 

Another stream has its source on the Daniel B. Tuthill place and 
enters the Gah-hun-da where the Thomas saw mill was located. 

Another stream rises on lands of the late Watkins Davis and 
flows north-westerly into the valley stream on the Niram Squires 
place. 

Another stream has its fountain head on lands of Major Beers 
and enters the valley stream by the former saw mill of Moses 
Hartwell, 

The east side of the township is drained by several minor 
streams that flow into the East Branch of Lake Keuka. They are 
mainly guUys, the longest of which is the one rising on the Shep- 
pard lands and flows through the estate of Erastus Cole, passing 
Kinney's Corners and entering the East Branch of the lake on lands 
of Sherman Williams. 

Another stream of nearly equal capacity is one rising on lands 
of Wendell Hartshorn and flowing south-easterly through lands 
of E. C. Purdy, and entering the lake near T, Purdy's. 

It appears from these glances at the water-courses of Jerusalem, 
that the water-sheds or highlands may generally be designated, 

First, those of the West Hill range, the streams of which flow 
easterly, with two exceptions: that of the one flowing northerly 
through Sherman's Hollow into Potter, and the one of which the 
headwaters concentrate in the Big Marsh and flow south-westerly 
intq the Cohocton River. 

Second, the East Hill range, with waters westerly, south-wester- 
ly, and north-westerly, the mouths of the streams tending northward 
the farther one goes in that direction, and the streams on the east 
side of this hill range generally taking a south-eastern course to the 
lake. 

Third, Bluff Point, in accordance with its gradual rise from Kin- 
ney's Corners, and lying between the two branches of Lake Keuka 
(East and North Branches) till near its termination at the junction 
of the three branches of the lake it rises to its highest altitude, 
sheds its surface waters into the North Branch on the west side and 
on the south-south-east side, through the mouths of many turbulent 
little torrents that have torn out the ravines. 

SAW MILLS. 

GUYANOGA VALLEY. 

While this region was abounding with dense original forests, the 
saw mill was an institution established upon every stream of suffici- 
ent water flow to maintain a dam. 

Though lumber — the choicest — was worth but little in those 
times, it was a source of some revenue to the hard-pressed pioneer, 
after deducting the saw bill from the gross receipts. 

The first saw mill in Jerusalem was that of the Friend's on the 
creek in the Guyanoga Valley. The exact date of its erection can- 



70 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

not be given, but judging from other known facts, it was somewhere 
about 1795, or not later than 1797, as the Cole mill was erected a 
year or two later, and the latter was the last one built previous to 
1800, on the stream. Members of the Friend's Society sawed out the 
lumber for the Friend's house in this mill and did some custom saw- 
ing during several years. 

Nathaniel Cothern put up a saw mill on land now owned by Rob- 
ert Herries, in a very early time. It was known years afterward aa 
the "mud mill," owing to the marshy condition of the land about it. 
Some of the oldest inhabitants who were living a few years ago, 
assert that a man by the name of Pedrick put up the mill. It may 
be that he did the work for Cothern, as he put up another mill 
farther up the stream, for Isaac Adams. 

Two saw mills were built on the site where Simeon Cole's mill 
was located, both of which were burned. Elijah Botsford owned a 
saw mill there, which it appears he sold to Allen Cole in 1828. 
Alfred Brown was an early owner of a mill there, and at one time a 
mill was owned by David Thomas and Allen Cole. In 1829 Allen 
Cole died and by his will the saw mill became the property of his 
brother, Simeon Cole, who owned it from that time till his death. It 
was a water mill till 1873 when steam was put in as the propelling 
power. The upright saw was used till 1883, when a circular saw 
was put in. When water was used to run the mill, the dam covered 
about eight acres. When the mill was run by water power" it had a 
capacity of about 4,000 feet of lumber per day. By steam, about 
6,000. The Cole' saw mill, the last stationary one in Jerusalem, was 
destroyed by fire in May, 1895. 

James Brown put up a saw mill in 1848 on the site of that of 
the Friend's, which he conducted a number of years. It was an 
undershot Brice wheel. 

The Adams saw mill a short distance south of the Cole mill, 
will be remembered by some who are now living. It was, for that 
time, a modern upright mill, and the dam was a public highway. 
Pedrick built it for Isaac Adams. It was run by water. 

The next mill farther up the stream, north of James Brown's 
mill, was that of Moses Hartwell. 

Three saw mills were close together on Benjamin Arnold's land, 
two of which he owned. They were near the town line and were all 
run by the same water power. 

This section of what is the extreme northern part of the Guya- 
noga Valley, was then known as Arnold's Hollow, by reason of the 
mills. John Potter built the saw mill farthest north on the stream. 

Thus, there were at least ten saw mills, at various times, on 
this stream through Guyanoga Valley. 

SMITH GULLY. 

Two saw mills have been erected and operated on ,the Smith 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 71 

Gully. David Smith was the first one to put up a saw mill on the 
stream which bears his surname. It was built for him by James 
Scheetz In 1844. Cyrenus Townsend helped about erecting the mill 
and getting it in running operation. It was an upright saw and over- 
shot wheel. Cyrenus afterward sawed in the mill a while, and he 
related to the writer that in one day he sawed 4,472 feet of pine 
lumber. 

John Lown built a saw mill, in 1847,on the same stream, above 
that of David Smith's, on his own land; but there was insufficient 
water-power to run the mill. Elijah Guernsey afterward took it 
down, alone, with ropes, and it was then moved to the James Brown 
place, a few rods south-west of his house. John O'Brien put steam 
appliances in the mill and afterward sawed out considerable pine 
timber. 

HURD'S. 
About 1847 or '48, Ferris P. Hurd built a saw mill in what was 
then a lumber district. It was located a short distance north of the 
Big Swamp, in the south-western part of the town, near the public 
highway between Branchport and Italy Hill. Soon after it was In 
operation it was destroyed by fire; but as speedily as possible it was 
re-built and was conducted by him upward of forty years, sawing out, 
each year, an immense quantity of lumiser. 

Another saw mill was located on a stream rising In the south- 
western part of Jerusalem, in a wild and picturesque spot of tower- 
ing rocks and water-falls, on land of Augustus Peterson. 
THE Bl(^ GULLY. 
There have been four saw mills on The Big Gully. The first one 
was erected by John Townsend, one of the sons of Capt. Lawrence 
Townsend. This mill was on the north side of the public highway 
leading to the Green Tract, and was put up very early In the pre- 
vious century. It was propelled by a flutter wheel. The mill was on 
the east side of the stream, only a few rods north-west from the 
stone house erected by his son, John Townsend, which is still stand- 
ing, and is now the residence of Benjamin Stoddard. The writer of 
these pages recollects when a portion of the dam for this mill was 
plainly visible, and also the frame work of the mill. 

John and Cyrenus Townsend erected a mill about one-fourth of 
a mile farther down the stream, on the east side. After a while 
Cyrenus sold his interest in the mill to John, who conducted it a 
few years till it was destroyed by fire in 1848 or '49. The mill had 
an overshot wheel. 

Aaron Remer, early in the preceding century, put up a saw mill 
on the north side of the stream, a rod or two east of the only public 
highway that crosses The Big Gully after leaving the clearings from 
its source. The writer, in early years, observed the mill race from 
the high bridge that spanned the stream. It was in part cut through 



72 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

the Portage rock along the north side of the gorge. The dam was 
located above the iron bridge of the highway. The mill was equipped 
with a flutter wheel. It has been stated that Thomas Gray owned 
and run this mill about 1844. Not long after the mill was erected, 
George K. Shattuck ran it for some time. It was while he was 
operating it, that one night as he went Just outside to roll in a 
log, a huge panther was discovered lying on the log. He did not 
roll that log into the mill that night, but went back and replenished 
the fire, and from that time on during the night he kept it burning 
briskly. Just as daylight began to dawn, the terror of the forest 
gave an ominous growl and retreated into the forest. 

Martin Gage erected a saw mill in early times on this stream, 
directly north of the lands of Samuel Davis. It was equipped with 
an overshot wheel. It was the last mill standing on the stream. It 
was typical of forest times, and the writer of this volume gives his 
recollections of it in a chapter elsewhere in this work, somewhat 
fully, as it was the last of the pioneer construction outside the busy 
haunts of men. 

SCHOOLS. 

Civilization would be a meaningless word were it not for some 
forms or methods of instruction, or the schools. The essential elements 
that have advanced man beyond barbarism lie in the rudiments of 
education. Many a great character set forth on the pages of history 
went out into the struggling world equipped only with the mental 
training of the common schools. They grasped opportunities in the 
practical fields of life, studying and plodding whenever and where- 
ever they could find any chance. They approached the greatest 
problems in human equation, grappled with them with calm reliance, 
applying all the logical analysis they could mentally summon and 
solved them with masterly skill and surprising sagacity. The great, 
good, and honest Abraham Lincoln was the most illustrious example 
of the triumph of mind over material, and in the lofty cause of 
human weal and the upbuilding of the noblest fabric of statesman- 
ship and the broadest and most beneficent brotherhood of man, 
he stands without a peer upon the pages of history. 

The modern dream of the simple life is chimerical. The fore- 
fathers are the only people who have lived it or ever will. The com- 
pulsory conditions under which they of necessity lived it, cannot in 
the nature of things exist again. People cannot go back to the first 
clearings, the log cabins with their crude comforts, the privations 
of the pioneer, and the home-made garments of homespun direct 
from the body of the sheep. 

In the early days the schoolmaster who had mastered DaboU's 
arithmetic and who could repeat the alphabet backwards and for- 
wards, and write plain English, did well if he received the liberal 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 73 

wards, and write plain English, did well if he received the liberal 
salary, for those days, of $60 per year and board. 

Would the log school house be tolerated today? Would not the 
interfering arm of the State stretch out and demolish it? The 
schoolmaster is no longer expected to hire out on his muscle. The 
universal flogging for trivial infringements upon the generally pre- 
scribed code of deportment is relegated to moral suasion or expulsion, 
though it must be acknowledged there are cases in most schools 
where a good whipping is the only effectual remedy. The thrashing 
at school and the thrashing at home for getting thrashed at school 
would literally call out the militia if indulged in now. It was a 
doubly dreaded discipline. It was an effectual though decidedly heroic 
treatment which tended to make the most incorrigible sit up and 
take notice. 

Some of the oldest inhabitants with whom the writer conversed 
years ago, could not state with certainty as to the first school house 
erected in Jerusalem. Every first structure for schools, generally, 
was of logs. Light, teachers and textbooks were simple and rudi- 
mentary, as were all things pertaining to life in those days. 

There are twenty common school houses in Jerusalem. There 
are 21 school districts drawing State funds. The one district in 
excess of the number of school houses is part of a district with the 
school house in another township. 

Next to the last district formed which erected a school house 
was No. 20 on Bluff Point, known as the Van Tuyl school house. It 
was brought about mainly through the efforts of the late William 
F. Van Tuyl, a well known teacher and who was school commissioner 
of Yates County two terms. 

In 1898 there were 452 children of school age in Jerusalem. The 
value of the school buildings and sites was placed at $10,775. The 
school moneys apportioned among the several districts that year was 
$2,287.87. District No. 14 received a larger amount than any other, 
the Branchport district, yet it was only $127.02. The lowest was 
No. 10, the Green Tract, which was then $105.98. 

The last school house and district erected was No. 21, adjacent 
to Keuka College. 

School district No. 17 was known in the days of the log school 
house as Sabintown. After the frame school house was built by 
Jeremiah S. Burtch, about 1848, James Miller taught the first term 
of school in it. 

In 1853, as shown by the report of Joseph W. Brown, Town 
Superintendent, there were 70 scholars in district No. 7. In 1843 the 
public money apportioned to this district was $65.14. 

Keuka College. 
While engaged in obtaining information to be used in this work 
a few years ago, the writer solicited a statement of the facts per- 



74 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

taining to the founding of Keuka College, from Rev. Dr. George H. 
Bali, A. M., and he very kindly supplied the information herewith 
given. It should be remembered that it was mainly through the 
efforts and great influence of this distinguished educator that Keuka 
College was founded here in Jerusalem near the shore of Lake 
Keuka: 

"In 1887 the Free Baptist Central Association and the New York 
State Christian Association decided to unite in an effort to found a 
college. They adopted a basis of union, chose a board of trustees 
and after investigation of several other localities, decided to locate 
such an institution of learning on the shore of Lake Keuka 'in the 
town of Jerusalem. 

"A plot of 160 acres of land was purchased and plans adopted 
to prosecute the work. Before much was actually done, the repre- 
sentatives of the Christian denomination retired from the enterprise, 
at the same time disavowing any grounds for complaint of their 
partners in the compact. The Central Association determined to go 
on with the work and do its best to make it a success. 

"An architect was engaged, plans made, funds subscribed, and 
the farm laid out into a college campus of 18 acres, an assembly 
grove of 20 acres and about 800 building lots, with suitable streets 
and avenues. In the spring of 1888 ground was broken for a build- 
ing of brick and stone, 200x65 feet in size, and including the basement 
a building five stories high. The Central Association advanced about 
110,000, the citizens' subscription yielded a little over $20,000, 
the sale of building lots over $60,000 and donations from friends at a 
distance about $20,000. Finally in the autumn of 1889 the building 
was completed and the farm paid for, with bills payable amounting 
to about $12,000 and receivable to nearly the same. 

"The scheme included a college settlement of families interested 
in education, a primary school for children, a preparatory school for 
fitting for college or business, industrial training, and a college of 
current grade giving a regular four years college course. In alliance 
with these facilities a summer assembly was designed to arouse. 
Instruct and entertain the public and interest them in the College. 
December 10, 1890, an Academic charter was granted by the Regents 
of the University of the State and February 11, 1892, a provisional 
college charter was given to be made absolute when an endowment 
of $100,000 should be secured. In 1897 requisite funds having been 
secured, regular college work began and in 1901 graduations in 
course began." 

KINNEY'S CORNERS. 

Some years ago when the writer was gathering material for this 
work, he had some correspondence with Coates Kinney, the famous 
poet, philosopher and journalist, of Ohio, who was born in the little 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 75 

red house at Kinney's Corners, near which his father, Giles Kinney, 
conducted a hotel several years and from whom Kinney's Corners 
derived its name. Coates Kinney's first flash of fame came from the 
beautiful ballad, "Rain on the Roof," which he wrote and which was 
published very early in life. Fine as this little poem is, it is but 
an infinitesimal part of the highly wrought gems from his greatly 
gifted intellectual nature. For many years he was the editor of the 
Xenia (Ohio) Torchlight, the columns of which glowed with his 
genius. 

He contributed much to magazines and other periodicals in which 
his incisive and analytical mind exhibited qualities of the highest 
order. He has passed away since the highly interesting correspond- 
ence referred to was had with him, and the writer cherishes, as one 
of the most valued keepsakes, a copy of Coates Kinney's volume of 
poems as a presentation from the distinguished author. 

While admitting all the merit claimed for the poem which started 
his fame in literary ascendancy, in reading over the treasures of his 
original mind manifest in his volume of poems, the writer is of the 
opinion that there is a greater sphere of significance and touching 
tenderness of thought in his poem entitled "Were This Our Only 
Day." It seem,s prophetic, too, of the close of his own brilliant life. 

A very gratifying result of the correspondence referred to was 
a letter from Mrs. Jane C. Eastman, the youngest sister of Coates 
Kinney's mother, who was present at the little red house at Kinney's 
Corners when Coates Kinney was born. As she was an aunt of 
Coates Kinney, and as the letter abounds with a fund of interesting 
early reminiscences of people and events in and about Kinney's Cor- 
ners and other sections of Jerusalem, it is a special pleasure to give 
It herewith: 

Leipsic, Putnam Co., Ohio, 

May 3rd, 1898. 
Miles A. Davis. 

Dear Sir: Your letter of April 30th reached me yesterday. I am 
afraid my nephew has raised your expectations of help from me far 
above what you will realize. 

Will preface what I may write by informing you that I am in my 
82nd year and for two years past have been suffering with nervous 
disease so that I can only write at intervals. 

My father, Samuel Cornell, moved to Jerusalem in the spring of 
1825. I was then nine years old. We moved into a log house about 
half a mile northwest of Kinney's Corners. He had a farm near by, 
mostly in the woods, but no house on it. He built a log house and 
barn on his farm. Most of the farm houses in the township were of 
logs; there were a few frame houses at Kinney's Corners, but not 
one of them painted; not even the hotel, which has been rebuilt 
several times. My brother-in-law, Giles Kinney, owned and kept it 
at that time. There was a store, a tannery, a shoe shop, an ashcry 
and a distillery, with several dwellings at the Corners. Do not think 
there was any village in the township. The western part was mostly 



76 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

in t^e woods. Where Branchport now is, was an almost impassible 
swamp, with nearly a mile of corduroy road and bridge. I do not 
think there was a church house. 

The school houses were of logs, with a large fire-place. Seats of 
slabs with sticks drove into auger-holes for legs; but our teachers 
were far in advance of our surroundings; generally capable and suc- 
cessful. The greatest difficulty seemed to be the want of books. The 
first teacher I remember was a Miss Waite, of what was then called 
Bluff Point. There were three sisters of the name. Then the And- 
rews brothers, three in number, were teachers. The Hartshorns, 
three brothers and two sisters; James Irons, W. H. Myers, the Van 
Tuyls, and others. 

Our religious privileges were rather limited. A few Christians 
(perhaps Methodists) had prayer meetings Sunday mornings in pri- 
vate houses; sometimes in the school house. After two or three 
years the Methodist circuit preacher held services once in two weeks, 
generally on week-day evenings. Afterwards there was a frame 
school house erected at the four corners, about a quarter of a mile 
west of Kinney's Corners; then the Baptists had preaching there on 
Sunday once in four weeks. There were two aged ministers living 
in the township, one by the name of Judd, was, if I remember right, 
a Presbyterian; the other was Potter, a Christian. He preached occa- 
sionally in the log school house on the west part of my father's farm. 
Elder Judd, as he was called, seldom preached; was quite old. 

James Barnes was Inspector of Schools. When I was about four- 
teen he visited the school of Miss Abigail Hartshorn. She was a little 
behind time with her classes, and asked me to look over a class. He 
spoke low to her and remarked, "That girl is a born teacher." That 
was a great inspiration to me, for I thought then of preparing myself 
for that occupation. He was an old man then, but said to be a good 
scholar. Two years after, I passed examination as a teacher and 
taught a term of five months in the district where I had been a 
scholar. Took the winter term of four months. Married before the 
term was out. Was seventeen years of age. Came with my husband 
to Ohio 64 years ago. After a year or so, returned, but only lived in 
Jerusalem a short time. My husband was a shoemaker. Lived part 
of the time in Penn Yan and part in Dundee. After nine years we 
came again to Ohio. 

Excuse my giving so much personal history. I only wanted to 
show how small a portion of my life was in that locality. Of course 
improvements progressed rapidly on all lines. Good buildings took 
the place of the log huts. Henry Rose built what was then thought 
to be a very fine house; so did the Beddoe brothers, and many farm- 
ers in good circumstances. 

The Hartshorn brothers owned a large tract of land in the north 
part of the township. I think the Gelders came there about 1832 or 
'33. 

As near as I can remember, Branchport was spoken of as the 
commencement of a village about 1829 or '30. After my return from 
Ohio we lived there one winter, about 1837. Don't remember that 
there was any church house there. There were several mechanic 
shops, two stores — one kept by Spencer Booth — the name of the 
other I do not recollect. Think there was a hotel by Solomon D. 
Weaver. Lumbering was the principal business. 

There were two Revolutionary pensioners living near father's: 
Mr. Anderson and Mr. Fredenburg. The tanning and shoe business 
was carried on by Ferris and TallmadgeS at the Comers. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 77 

The hotel had a large ball room over the front part where the 
young people of the surrounding country used to dance, generally 
to the music of blind Gilbert Sutphen. Occasionally someone else 
would furnish the music. 

On the evening of November 13, 1833, they were having a grand 
ball. I was present, though I did not dance, but was there for so- 
ciability. After 11 p. m. I asked my partner to takie me home. It 
was only half a mile distant. In driving that short distance we 
counted nine or ten "shooting stars," as we used to call them. We 
thought it somewhat remarkable. On arriving home I retired immed- 
iately to rest, and so missed a most wonderful display of meteors. 
My partner said before he reached the hotel on his return, the storm 
of meteors was like a snowstorm. When he entered the ball room 
he saw that the curtains to the windows had prevented the dancers 
from seeing the sight. He asked if they had observed the phenome- 
non in the heavens. They all rushed to the windows; a panic en- 
sued; some prayed; some screamed; some thought the end of all 
things had come; one man had a fit. I think his name was Peter 
Coiiklin. It was the only time I regretted leaving a ball. No more 
dancing that night. 

Many families of old settlers lived in Jerusalem before we did. 
The Wests — a large family — the Herricks, of Bluff Point, the Chases, 
Lounsberry, Bashford, the Martins, Van Tuyls, the Dormans, Moses, 
and my grandfather, William Cornell; but I cannot mention half of 
them. Respectfully, 

JANE C. EASTMAN. 

A TRANSFER. 

In looking over some papers stored in the final residence of John 
Ingraham, the writer found a deed of lan(^ that was executed by and 
bore the signature of Asa Brown, bearing date April 14, 1823. By this 
instrument he conveyed to John Ingraham ten acres of land for forty 
dollars, described as follows: 

"Beginning at the southeast comer of Nathaniel Ingraham's farm 
thence west thirteen chains, thence south seven chains, fifty-nine 
links, thence east thirteen chains, thirty-seven links, thence northerly 
to the place of beginning, containing ten acres of land and no more." 

From this description the parcel of land must have been south- 
west of the stone school house, district No. 7, and oni the south side 
of the road leading west of the school house. 

It was at the northeast corner of this land, nearly across the 
road from the school house, that a log tavern was located in pioneer 
times, concerning which, Samuel Davis related to the writer an amus- 
ing account of how it was conducted by David Ingraham and son. 
The father, David Ingraham, who was a son Nathaniel Ingraham, 
would own the tavern a while and during his period of proprietor- 
ship the son would imbibe freely of the liquid dealt out over the bar 
and have the bill for it charged up to him. When the father got tired of 
this he would sell out the tavern to the son and he in turn would 
partake of the wet goods a while on the same credit system. Thus the 
balance of trade was maintained, alternating between the proprietor- 



78 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

ship and the regular customer till the last drop behind the bar and 
the last cent in the till were exhausted. 

COAXES KINNEY. 

One of the most eminent men of letters, who first saw the light 
of day in Western New York, was Coates Kinney. He was born in 
the township of Jerusalem, at Kinney's Comers, on the northwest of 
the four corners, in a small frame house that was painted red, oppo- 
fcite the tavern, on the 24th of November, 1826. 

Here he lived till early in the year 1840, when about fourteen 
years of age, he with the others of his father's family, took passage 
in a wagon to the nearest point on the canal; thence by canal boat 
to Buffalo; from Buffalo by steamboat to Cleveland, Ohio; again by 
canal boat to Columbus; again by wagon to Dayton, and finally to 
Springboro, Ohio. 

The red frame house in which Coates Rinney was born was torn 
down about 1860. While he was a boy living at the Corners, he went 
up to the little school house, which then stood about where the pres- 
ent one is, about opposite the Methodist church. In that little school 
house he learned his A, B, C's. In winter he used to enjoy the sport 
of riding down the long steep hill west of the school house. He be- 
came a phenomenal reader and speller while attending school at this 
little school house on the corner. He could spell down the whole 
school. Though only abouA twelve years of age, on one occasion in a 
reading class of almost young men and women, the teacher, a stately 
gentleman of the name of Rogers, said to him, impressively, after he 
had read his turn, "Coates Kinney, you are the monarch of this class." 

It was the custom of those days to have "spelling bees," that is, 
gatherings of two or three schools in some one school house at night, 
where the best spellers of those schools stood up against one another. 
Coates Kinney was carried around to these contests, and small and 
young as he was, he always spelled them down. This was one of his 
natural gifts. He read everthing he could get hold of. 

His father, Giles Kinney, was born in New London, Connecticut, 
and his father's father was also born in Connecticut, and his great 
grandfather came over in the Mayflower. 

Coates Kinney's mother was Myra Cornell, born in Delaware 
County, New York. She was the daughter of Samuel Cornell, whom 
some of the old residents of Jerusalem used to know. Her mother, 
Polly Cornell, was a splendid woman who lived to be 94 years of age. 

Coates Kinney was the third of a family of twelve children. At 
Springboro, Ohio, he attended school and very diligently applied him- 
self to his studies. There was an academy and a public library there, 
and he absorbed instruction from all sources. He took to Latin, 
algebra and geometry and led the school. 

After this he began teaching and taught five or six terms. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 79 

Then came a strong light into the life of this young man. He en- 
tered the law office of the famous Thomas Corwin, at Lebanon, and 
that great man took a strong liking to him, and he complimented him 
with his hearty friendship as long as he lived. But the law had less 
charms for him than other pursuits. 

Later he went to Bellefontaine, Logan County, to teach. He taught 
a selected school there a while. Then he resumed the study of law 
in the office of Hon. William Lawrence. There he wrote his famous 
epic, "Rain on the Roof," which captivated the public and went 
through the English-speaking world. 

Afterward he took up his abode In Cincinnati and was admitted 
to the bar from the law office of Donn Piatt He practiced law in Cin- 
cinnati about a year, and in Warren County about the same length 
of time. 

He went from Warren County to Xenia and took editorial charge 
of the Xenia News, in which he continued till the beginning of the War 
for the Union. Salmon P. Chase, then Secretary of the Treasury, 
procured from Simon Cameron, then Secretary of War, a commission 
for Coates Kinney as Major" and Paymaster U. S. Army. His commis- 
sion was signed by Abraham Lincoln, President; Simon Cameron, 
Secretary of War. He served four years and a half — from June 1,1861, 
to November 14. 1865 — and was mustered out with the commission of 
Lieutenant Colonel by Brevet, "for long and faithful services." 

After the war he bought the Xenia Torchlight, which he conduct- 
ed a few years and into which he put much of his Intellectual force 
and acumen. 

At one time he edited the Cincinnati Daily Times. He was chief 
editorial writer on the Ohio State Journal one winter. He once owned 
and edited the Springfield Daily Republic. He partly owned and 
edited The Genius of the West, a literary magazine in Cincinnati. 

He was elected to the Ohio Senate from the fifth Senatorial Dis- 
trict. 

In all these busy, variegated years he wrote much, of both prose 
and poetry. He wielded a keen, analytical, cogent and facile pen, and 
much of his manuscripts are yet unpublished. 

At the demise of Coates Kinney, a widow, who was Mary Allen, 
and three daughters, Myra, Lestra and Clara, survived, and were then 
living at Xenia, Ohio, 

Readers all over the world, as well as Jerusalem, would like to 
see and know more of the mental nature and the productions of this 
Intellectual star whose lyrics and epics have cheered many thousands 
of American people and uplifted the thoughts of men and women of 
other lands as well as the Great Republic. 

GU-YA-NO-GA. 

When the earliest pioneers came to Jerusalem and began to make 
clearings in the unbroken forest, it was a veritable paradise of the 



80 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Aboriginal people, who mainly subsisted upon the game animals 
abounding in the woods and the plentiful fish of the lake and 
streams. The long struggle of nearly eight years for colonial liber- 
ty was still fresh in the minds of the participants, when the first log 
cabins dotted at usually wide intervals, the forest landscape stretch- 
ing in every direction beyond the range of human vision. 

The real settlers or pioneers were not the first white men to see 
this land of promise. The English agents of the Hudson Bay Fur 
Company found their way here to traffic with the Indians for the 
valuable fur pelts the latter were known to obtain throughout the 
wide range of their hunting grounds. The agents of the Hudson Bay 
Company were aggressively pushing out over a large portion of the 
North American continent for commercial conquest in the line of the 
most valuable furs to be found in the world. They carried with them 
the traditional spirit of their nationality, which sought to plant the en- 
sign of Albion over all lands likely to become subject to the aggran- 
dizement of European sovereignty. 

Before the first settlement upon the soil of Jerusalem there was a 
French Canadian by the name of Francois DeBolt, who made occa- 
sional visits to this region for the purpose of hunting and fishing with 
the Indians. During these visits he was a welcome guest of the great 
chief, Gu-ya-no-ga, with whom he enjoyed a steadfast reciprocal 
friendship. The wigwam of Gu-ya-no-ga was an open hospitality to his 
friends of both races, and Debolt associated much with the venerable 
chief, whom he characterized as dignified and reserved, like many of 
his race, yet exceedingly kind, courteous, and thoroughly hospitable, 
a true representative of his people, whom the great majority of white 
men have never understood. 

From accounts that have drifted down through various ways, Gu- 
ya-no-ga was one of the great men of the Seneca Nation, both physically 
and mentally. It is well authenticated that he was heartily in favor 
of the cause of the colonies in the Revolutionary struggle, and at 
times he rendered signal and important service to the army of Wash- 
ington in conveying information of inestimable value. He was a 
splendid type of the noble Red Man. 

From early oral accounts handed down from the original settlers, 
it seems clear that the wigwam of Gu-ya-no-ga was situated on lands 
of Frank Botsford, west of his residence and on the same side of the 
road. The noble elm tree standing at the four corners of the roads 
is only a few rods southwest of the spot. Upon these grounds, also, 
was an Indian encampment, or perhaps a small village, clustered near 
the abode of the great chief. The writer gleaned these facts from an 
Interview he had with Mrs. Margaret Botsford, mother of the late 
Samuel Botsford, who related at the time many incidents of her early 
life and recollections. 

It is quite probable that the body of Gu-ya-no-ga waa buried in the 



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82 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

cated Indian, thought Jen-ne-a-To-na-kah, sometimes abbreviated to 
To-na-kah, was a name for the Senecas, signifying "People of Many 
Hills." The true Indian name, as I have it from a well educated 
member of this Nation, in one of my conversations with him on the 
Tonawanda Reservation, is Te-hoo-nea-nyo-hent. 

Whatever name may descend into later history as authoritative, 
it is certain that the Senecas, as we are wont to call them in our lan- 
guage, occupied not only the Paradise of the Genesee Country, but a 
strategetic situation in the affairs of the Oon-qua-hone-we, or real 
men, of the mighty Six Nations, in their aggressive outpushings upon 
the domain of the Eries, west of the Genesee River, of the Algon- 
quins in the region of Irondequoit Bay, and the Hurons in the basin 
of the great lake bearing their name. 

We hear and often see statements about this or that locality be- 
ing historic ground. The fact is that the locations over which the 
stream of stiring and momentous events have not poured through 
some periods of time are few and exceptional. 

More than a century and a score of years have vanished into the 
abyss of the past since the great Indian chief, Gu-ya-no-ga dwelt in 
this beautiful valley of Lake Keuka, upon a spot but a few rods north- 
east of the location of the monument which the good people have 
met here to dedicate to the memory of a great Son of the Forest. 
Less than a centuiy and a half ago there was not a white person 
living anywhere in what is now known as Guyanoga "Valley. All this 
region was peopled only by the Red Men of the Woods. Now there is 
not an Indian living either in this valley or in Jerusalem. Thus, 
race rotation moves on with celerity comparable only with the speed 
of the planet through space in its annual orbit around the sun, mov- 
ing constantly at the velocity of 68,000 miles an hour. 

No history can adequately compass the magnitude of the muta- 
tions of time. In the flush of Aboriginal occupation of this region, 
in the 17th century, it would have seemed incredible that the Indian 
would have been completely supplanted within another century from 
the first appearance of the white man in this valley in 1791. The 
members who were a portion of the colony of the Friends, built the 
first crude white man's abode in Guyanoga Valley, and made the first 
clearing. At that period of time the Indian's wigwam was every- 
where the only visible habitation of man. The trails of the Forester 
were the only human pathways over hills and valleys. The Indian 
was in his natural element hunting in the wide-spread forest for game 
upon which to subsist, to his credit be it said, never through wanton- 
ness or a mere desire to kill, supplementing his diet with fish 
abounding plentifully in the stream, and the maize and vegetables 
coaxed into growth from here and there a spot in the soil. 

Perhaps no problem in race equation has ever more intensely oc- 
cupied attention in this valley than that of the cisappearaiice of the 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 83 

Indian or Aborigine and the on-coming of the white man. Gu-ya-no- 
ga was a noble Indian, a loyal and devoted friend of the colonists dur- 
ing the dark days of the Revolution. Many instances might be re- 
lated in substantiation of this fact, if time permitted more than a 
bird's-eye view of the kaleidoscope of the past. Gu-ya-no-ga had a 
friendly understanding with General Washington, who recognized 
the value of the services and information which Gu-ya-no-ga 
rendered the continental army at various times in the perilous period 
which tried men's souls. 

The custom of placing documentary evidence of the times in the 
corner stone of buildings and monuments erected in commemoration 
of human purposes or achievements, is of more than passing interest 
and importance. Monument and building will crumble to ruin, and 
the people of a remote future may be delving in the dust and debris 
of works of man to determine, if they can, what signification the rem- 
nants had in a former civilization. While, today, erecting a symbol 
of the Red Race, in honor of Gu-ya-no-ga, what clue or cryptogram 
in archive or inscription accompanies this laudable endeavor to per- 
petuate the memory of one of the noblest Men of the Woods? If 
futurity peers through archeological lenses, how shall be determined 
the definite object and purpose of the work of today? The incono- 
clast is abroad in every land, and the whirl-i-gig of time turns to 
travesty many of the highest hopes of all ages.. 

Gu-ya-no-ga was a patriot, who, while following the trails of his 
people, foresaw the destiny of the pale-face, and devotedly and unsel- 
fishly strove for the welfare of a race not his own, pitted, in behalf 
of freedom, against the oppressions of their own blood from across 
the sea. Through the thin but unconquerable ranks of the Colonial 
volunteers he beheld with the eye of a seer the vanishing boundaries 
of the Six Nations in the all-absorbing contest for "life, liberty, and 
the pursuit of happiness." 

The generous hospitality of the Red Man to his friends was fully 
illustrated in the wigwam of Gu-ya-no-ga, who dispensed with a free 
hand the good things of this life to all comers, and so widely known 
were his distinguishing traits of character that white men of cele- 
briJty came from as far away as Canada and passed days with him 
in the enjoyment of his forest home and his personal qualities which 
rendered the excellent hunting and fishing grounds, attractive in 
themselves, of secondary interest to his visitors from abroad. He 
was a veritable Roman of the New World, with the masks and husks 
of pretentious governments and the swathing impediments of civiliza- 
tion regarded with the fine scorn of a race reveling through in- 
terminable time in the boundless heart of Nature. 

A few of the Red Race lingered long in this lovely valley. It 
was the restful realm of the old and worn warriors in the twilight of 
life who loved to sit in the shadows and think of the great Spirit 



84 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

land beyond the turmoils of time. I recall the relation of another 
notable Indian in the upper region of this valley who lingered after 
the sunset and smoked his pipe of peace as So-son-do-wah disap- 
peared beyond the western horizon. The Red Man asked for no sym- 
pathy or quarter in the utter extermination of his earthly bounda- 
ries. To the last he hunted in the forest and fished in the stream for 
fcod, and patiently plied his works of art even while making his exit 
through the doorway of his wigwam to which he was never to return. 

This region was a part of the favorite hunting and fishing 
grounds of the Senecas, and but for the zealous identification of these 
Aboriginal owners of the soil upon which we tread today, with the 
British in the Revolutionary struggle, save a few notable exceptions 
like Gu-ya-no-ga, and others, no doubt they could have peacefully 
occupied, much longer, this valley and the adjacent hills of Jerusa- 
lem during many moons of time as reckoned by the first known 
people of this township. But that alliance sealed their doom of occu- 
pation as General Sullivan marched through the garden of their do- 
main from Newtown northward along Seneca Lake to Kanadesaga 
and westward to the Genesee River in 1779. The nearest approach 
of the invading army to this region was at Kashong, destroying the 
Indian village located there on the west shore of Seneca Lake in the 
township of Benton. Sullivan's march passed through the then con- 
siderable Indian village of Ga-nun-da-gwa (now known as Canandai- 
gua), after leaving Kanadesaga, now Geneva, and the curious little 
island near the outlet of Canandaigua Lake, still known as Squaw 
Island, concealed from the devastating army a number of the wives, 
daughters, mothers and sweethearts of the Seneca braves. Between 
these two important Indian villages was the well traversed trail of 
the Iroquois to and from the midst of their Long House centered at 
Onondaga. This also led to the foot of Lake Keuka and by lesser 
pathways over into Gu-ya-no-ga Valley and beyond, reaching Ah-ta- 
gwe-da-ga (Flint Creek) and Kojandaga, at the head of Canandaigua 
Lake. 

The Senecas who once peopled all of Jerusalem, live now in 
their descendants upon the reservations parcelled to them by the 
State; and anomalous as it may seem they live upon lands they 
possess yet which they cannot sell or convey title, either among 
themselves or to anyone else. 

What shall be the final fate of these real and only American 
people, in an ethical point of view, is an intensely interesting se- 
quence of future evolution into which no perceptive analogy seems 
adequate to interrogate or answer. Alike, the Red Man's origin and 
destiny are enveloped in the mysteries of the infinite, 

ALTITUDES 

The Penn Yan Quadrangle of the United States Geological Survey 
in co-operation with the New York State Board of Engineers in 1900 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 85 

made a thorough survey of Jerusalem, a map of which was published 
in 1903, which included all of this township, a large portion of Potter, 
Benton', Milo, Barrington and Pulteney. From this valuable map of 
careful survey by thoroughly skilled engineers, a copy of which was 
very kindly supplied to the writer by the State Engineer, the follow- 
ing elevations are computed. In some instances the elevations are 
calculated from the figures indicated as the datum of mean sea level 
and in others are reckoned from stated basis by means of the zig-zag 
lines drawn upon the map, between which at all points, is represented 
an altitude of twenty feet. 

Lake Keuka is 709 feet above sea level. The highest point of 
land in Jerusalem is close to the Italy line, about three-fourths of a 
mile northeast of what is known as the Pulver school house in Italy, 
which spot is 1900 feet above sea level and 1191 feet above Lake 

The highest land about the headwaters of Five-Mile Creek, at the 
Italy line, is 1091 feet above Lake Keuka. This stream, rismg in 
Italy, crosses the public highway leading from the Green Tract school 
house to Italy Hill, one-fourth of a mile northeasterly from the resi- 
dence of John R. Andrews. 

The southwestern headwaters of the Big Gully, in the vicinity of 
the stone residence of the late John Townsend, is 1600 feet above sea 
level, 891 feet above Lake Keuka and 828 feet above where it flows 
into the creek in Guyanoga Valley. 

The highest point in Guyanoga Valley is near the Potter line, and 
is 181 feet above Lake Keuka. In other words, this is the amount of 
the descent of the creek from the Potter line to its entrance in Lake 

The Friend's house, one of the most notable landmarks of Jerusa- 
lem, is 1000 feet above sea level, 291 feet above Lake Keuka and 110 
feet above Guyanoga Valley. 

In Sherman's Hollow the lowest level of land is 987 feet above 
the sea, and 278 feet above Lake Keuka. 

Westward from Branchport up the road to Italy Hill, the highest 
elevation is about where William T. Hurd resides, which is 1510 feet 
above the sea and 801 feet above Lake Keuka. 

The stone school house is 1345 feet above the level of the sea, 636 
feet above Lake Keuka and 573 feet above Guyanoga Valley. 

The residence of the late Joseph N. Davis is 140 feet higher than 
the stone school house. 

Nettle Valley Creek, which rises well up on the Green Tract, at 
its headwaters hL an elevation of 991 feet above Lake Keuka, and 
the Carvey school house, which this stream passes, is 851 feet above 
Lake Keuka. and 573 feet above Sherman's Hollow. Nettle Valley 
Creek becomes a stream of noticeable volume ere it reaches tne 
Potter line in its northward flow into the great Potter Swamp, of 
which Flint Creek is the outlet. 



86 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

The highest land on East Hill is 1400 feet above the sea, and 691 
above Lake Keoika, and this point of land is passed over on the road 
to Penn Yan by the way of the Yates County Poor House, at the brow 
of the hill where the woods are, a short distance east of the County 
House. This summit is 668 feet above Guyanoga Valley. 

Another high point on East Hill, known as Gelder's, which is 
especially observable from Branchport, rising quite abruptly from 
the valley at its southern extremity, is 662 feet above Lake Keuka 
and 651 feet above Guyanoga Valley. 

The highest elevation on Bluff Point is 1520 feet above sea level, 
and 811 feet above Lake Keuka, the highest range being a little less 
than one mile from the end of the Point. The land rises very abrupt- 
ly from either side of the Point, approaching the end, from the lake 
to the summit. 

AN EARLY DEED. 

Through the kindness of Lorimer Ogden, of Penn Yan, who cour- 
teously supplied the writer of this work with a copy of one of the 
earliest deeds executed for the conveyance of land in Jerusalem, it 
is given herewith. It will be seen that Thomas Hathaway and Ben- 
edict Robinson convey thereby six hundred acres to Daniel Brown, 
junior, for $151. All the land thus conveyed was then a wilderness, 
and the description was naturally vague to some extent as to the 
boundaries. As Mr. Ogden says in his letter accompanying the copy, 
"I think it would trouble a surveyor to find the lines." 

Know all men by these presents that we, Thomas Hathaway and 
Benedict Robinson, both of Jerusalem, in the County of Ontario in 
the State of New York, Yeomen, for and in the consideration of the 
sum one hundred and fifty one dollars to us in hand well and truly 
paid by Daniel Brown, jr., of Jerusalem in the Town, County, and 
State aforesaid yeoman, the receipt whereof we do hereby acknowl- 
edge and have granted, bargined, sold, conveyed, and confirmed, 
and by these presents do grant bargin, sell, convey, and confirm 
unto the said Daniel Brown, jr., three certain separate tracts or par- 
cels of land, situate in Jerusalem, in the County and State aforesaid 
containing six hundred acres bounded as followeth: a white oak 
stake at the southeast corner of said Brown's land running south 
sixty eight rods and a half to another white oak stake; from thence 
west seven hundred rods joining lands belonging to the grantors to a 
stake and stones; from thence north sixty eight rods and one half to 
another stake; at the south west corner of said Brown's lands; and 
from thence east to the first mentioned place or places of beginning. 
And also another parcel or tract of land beginning at a walnut stake 
about two miles and a half south of the above mentioned tract on the 
east end of said tract; thence west unto the waters of Crooked 
Lake; thence northerly along the shores of said lake as by running 
an east line that will make one hundred and forty acres by leaving 
or making the northeast corner due north from tiie first mentioned 
place. And also another parcel or tract of land beginning by the 
waters of the west shore of the Crooked Lake at a oak stake run- 
ning west about one hundred and sixty rods unto a line running 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 87 

north and south about two miles from the east line of said township, 
called number seven second range, to an oak stake; from thence 
north as the said line runs one hundred and sixty rods to an oak 
stake; from thence east about one hundred and sixty rods unto a 
brook which runs into the Crooked Lake; from thence by the waters 
of said brook and lake unto the first mentioned place or places of 
beginning, with the appurtenances. — To have and to hold the granted 
land and premises with the appurtenances unto the Said Daniel 
Brown, junior, his heirs, and assigns to his and their only proper 
ye benefit and behoof forever, and we the said Hathaway and Robin- 
son for ourselves, heirs, executors, and administrators do hereby cov- 
enant with the said Daniel Brown, jr., his heirs and assigns, that we 
are lawfully seized in fee of the premises; that they are free from 
all incumbrance, that we have good right to sell and convey the 
same to the said Daniel Brown, jr., to hold as aforesaid and that we 
and our heirs, executors, and administrators shall and will warrant 
and defend the said granted premises to the said Daniel Brown, jr., 
bis heirs and assigns forever against the lawful claims and demands 
of all persons. 

In witness whereof we the said Hathaway and Robinson have 
hereunto set our hands and seals this fourth day of the seventh 
month in the year of our Lord One thousand seven hundred ninety- 
two. 

THOMAS HATHAWAY, 
BENEDICT ROBINSON. 
Signed, sealed and delivered in the presence of 

Rich'd Henderson. Susannah Brown. 

Registered in book fifth of the records for Ontario County page 87 

9th October 1797 

PETER B. PORTER, Clk. 
Ontario SS 

Be it remembered that on the 21st day of August One thousand 
seven hundred ninety seven, personally came before me, Arnold Pot- 
ter, one of the judges, for tihe said County of Ontario aforesaid, Bene- 
dict Robinson, and acknowledged that he signed, sealed and deliv- 
ered the within instrument as his volentary act, and deed, for the 
use and purpose therein expressed, I having examined it and find- 
ing no material erasures or interlinations, also knowing him to be 
the same person do allow it to be recorded. 

ARNOLD POTTER. 

WRITERS. 

Citizens of Jerusalem who have written occasionally or frequent- 
ly for one or other of the county papers have been: 

Isaac Purdy, Daniel B. Tuthill, Samuel Botsford, William Herries, 
Henry W. Harris, Wetzel M. Henderson, William F. VanTuyl, Rodolph- 
us N. VanTuyl, Hiram G. Mace, Abraham V. Dean, Charles F. Dick- 
inson, Albert R. Cowing, James A. Cole. 

They are no more. Applied to some of them, at least, a charac- 
terization embodying a presentation of the nature and scope of the 
manifest moods of mind they possessed, would be an interesting 
study if one were to indulge in an analysis of their mental accom- 
plishments, even though confined to local topics. Some wrote upon 
subjects of more general scope, though merit may not be measured 
by the theme of the occasion. 



88 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Among those named, who sometimes communed with the musea 
and produced some fine lines, were Rodolphus N. VanTuyl, Wetzel 
M. Henderson, William F. VanTuyl, Charles F. Dickinson. There may 
have been others, whose lines eluded the observation of the writer. 

Among the living, it is a pleasure to peruse in print articles 
from the pens of Berlin H. Wright, Verdi Burtch, Clarence F. Stone, 
Arthur Moxey, Wendell T. Bush, John R. Andrews, George H. Decker, 
Thomas W. Campbell, Chester C. Culver, Mortimer L. HoUister, and 
others. Duane Hamilton Hurd, a native of Jerusalem, who is prom- 
inently identified with great public interests in New England, could 
write highly interesting articles for Yates County readers if he could 
find time and be persuaded to do so. 

Miss Grace A. Timmerman, a well-known and highly esteemed 
young lady of Jerusalem, is a contributor to various publications hav- 
ing a large general circulation. Miss Timmerman's writings reveal 
decided merit of more than ordinary comprehensiveness and analyti- 
cal reasoning, especially when applied to subjects developed through 
deductive or comparative inference. Some of her idealistic poems 
appear in prominent publications. 

Miss Wave Burtch, a well-known and very successful teacher, 
is a pleasing writer whose occasional contributions to the press are 
characterized by a chariness that makes one wish for more. 

The thoughtful people of Jerusalem may have a just pride in this 
township having been the place of nativity of a widely famous poet, 
Coates Kinney, whose "Rain on the Roof" will go singing itself 
down the avenues of time. 

It may not be generally known, or well remembered, that Wet- 
zel M. Henderson was a linguist as well as a scholar of considerable 
attainments. This was manifest in a series of translations he 
made from the Scandinavian Sagas, which were published in the 
Yates County Chronicle when Stafford C. Cleveland was the editor. 
Mr. Henderson occasionally wrote some fine verse which appeared in 
print. A single line in one of his poems which appeared in the Penn 
Yan Democrat, still clings to memory as wonderfully expressive: 
"The wide-spread raven wing of night." 

Dr. James C. Wightman possesses literary capabilities which are 
unknown in some circles of his extended acquaintance, owing to his 
reluctance to publication after his productions are pruned and pol- 
ished to a rare degree of excellence. The terseness of the telegraph, 
yet exhaustively compassing every growth of a subject under analy- 
sis, but briefly defines the mental processes he applies to every 
form of intellectual construction. Occasionally some fragments of 
his work have been published. His erudition is equal to any theme 
he would willingly attempt to elaborate. 

Jerusalem was for many years the home of one of the most emi- 
nent all-around scientists of this or any other country. The late Dr. 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 89 

Samuel Hart Wright, A. M., was a great mathematician, astronomer, 
geologist, botanist, meteorologist, chemist, and thorough scholar In 
many other branches of knowledge. He was qualified to teach many 
professors in colleges matters beyond their courses. During a num- 
ber of years he made the astronomical calculations for the almanacs 
published in North America and some in South America. In botany 
he exchanged specimens of plants with other botanists all over the 
civilized globe. His herbarium was one of the most extensive and 
valuable of private collections. For considerable time he conducted 
a mathematical department in the Yates County Chronicle which at- 
tracted wide attention among distinguished educators. 

THE BIG GULLY. 

This is a romantic and very picturesque ravine in the western 
part of the township of Jerusalem. The stream that flows down deep 
between precipitous banks of rocks through which it has worn its 
way during more centuries of time than can be mathematically cal- 
culated in geological reckoning, is a clear and beautiful movement 
of water after the flush of melted snows and spring rains have sub- 
sided. The rocky gorge is about three miles in length. 

The bed of the stream is of the same strata of rock — starting in 
the Chemung group at its sources — as that along its banks, and 
extends through the Portage layer for more than two miles and a 
half of its course into the Gu-ya-no-ga Valley where it enters the 
northern inlet of Lake Keuka. 

The rock-walled banks, with summits one hundred to three hun- 
dred feet above the flowing thread of water, are mute evidence of 
the countless centuries during which the stream has eroded its des- 
cending pathway. No other note can be taken of the many moons of 
duration fulling and waning in the blue vault of the heavens as the 
glacier-freed stream was grooving its channel ere man appeared. 

The two main sources of water-flow are high up on the great 
West Hill range of Jerusalem, from springs in scanty woods and old 
meadow and pasture lands. So long as the season's moisture exists 
in the earth, the springs give forth to the brook. When the sun is 
high in the solar walk of the sky of early* summer, the springs grad- 
ually dwindle to imperceptible proportions and disappear altogether 
in the heat of mid-summer. Occasionally a hidden spring juts oui 
into a thread of crystal from beneath a protecting shadow of rock 
along the banks, insufficient in proportion, singly or collectively, to 
more than perceptibly moisten the rocks over which the brook sang 
its melodious lullaby only a few weeks before. If these humble con- 
tributions are sufficient to reach the grooved channel of the stream, 
they are speedily consigned to the oblivious sand and pebble beds, 
dropped into the chasm here and there by turbulence of the stream 
in the frenzy of its spring-time freshets. 



90 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Before the disappearance of the forests. The Big Gully main- 
tained a flow of water throughout most of the year sufficient to run 
a saw-mill. In pioneer days, four saw-mills were in operation on the 
stream, each propelled by water power supplied thereby. Now, ow" 
Ing to the clearing away of most of the woods, adjacent, and in some 
instances down to the bed of the stream, the water-course is dry 
during most of the summer and early autumn mouths, where, in for- 
est times, there was no apparent end to the volume. 

Nature, in all the lavishness of perennial beauty, never begirt a 
water-way with more sequestered charms or enchanting solitudes 
than The Big Gully. The lofty hemlocks towering along its rock- 
bound and moss-covered banks, uplift their evergreen plumes and 
tasseled tops of perpetual beauty and green glory in the sunlight, 
softening the storms and winds as they sweep over the broad hill 
range. The snows of winter contrast their white mantle with the 
evergreen vestments of the hemlocks in bold relief to the rigors of 
winter. Sometimes, under the interlacing foliage a shelter was 
formed for our beautiful and useful birds — the partridge, quail, chick- 
adee, and other of our feathered friends — and there the innocent 
creatures would huddle. The writer has seen the hemlock limbs, 
that grew near the ground, bent down on occasion with the weight 
of snow, forming a canopied roof. Beneath was a green carpet of 
moss plainly visible. Within this improvised shelter some of our 
native winter birds had taken refuge. It was a pity to frighten 
them by human footsteps. 

In summer, one notes the shy princess of songsters in the shadow 
of the woods — the wood-thrush — vocalizing the air with the most 
delightful sound in Nature. Its glorified rapture is attuned to the 
eternal orchestra of the dense woods that seem ever afar off in the 
silvery trumpet tone resounding through the forest cathedral. 

The evergreens that beautify the banks, from their base close to 
the edge of the stream, to the summit, are complemented in every 
realistic setting with a verdant carpet of moss and lichens over- 
spreading every rugged outline of uplifted rock. To lie down upon 
this surpassing cushion on a summer day, with the sun high in the 
heavens, and hear the aeolian wafting of bird notes in the air, is the 
nearest approach to paradise the writer has ever realized. 

The water-worn gorge is a perpetual vista of wonders and beau- 
ties bound between two volumes of rocks. There are foaming cas- 
cades and bold cataracts in wild abandonment for a usually 
modest stream to toy with and plunge as if in ecstacy to reach the 
pools at the foot of the rocks. There are stretches of sand and 
pebbles complacently resting in cavernous beds carried thither from 
tortuous energies displayed in spring-time freshets, underneath 
which the stream masks itself in summer when it can no longer 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 91 

maintain even the semblance of a flow over the clean-swept rocks 
above or below. Occasionally an improvised miniature dam is 
formed across the water-course by stone, sand, and pebbles, stayed 
by fragments of wood that were conveyed by the unstable stream in 
some of its imperative moods. Projecting roots or a tree standing 
close to the water-flow impaled some of the flood-wood and thus 
formed the rudiments of a dam. 

In the rock-embosomed pools at the foot of some shelf of rocks 
over which the water leaped in cataract abandonment, may be seen 
reflected in summer every form and color of the woods and sky. 
Even birds flying over are mirrored in the pool — a moving picture of 
plumaged life — glassing itself in the azure depths of the infinite 
ether in which its pinions were outspread, dimly shadowing for an 
instant its aerial form upon the liquid retina of the earth. The wide- 
spread wings of a hawk cast its shadow upon the surface of the 
pool like the last fugitive streak of night driven under spur of the 
furies against the mid-day sun. Occasionally the forest birds take a 
plunge in one of these vases of Nature, and even the shy and comely 
partridge has been seen dipping his beautifully dappled plumage in 
these pellucid summer pools. The small rifted clouds wandering 
lonely in space become intangible as they rotate their momentary 
eclipse of the sun upon these liquid lens. The skies benignly bent 
over through the trees in a living panorama. It were easy to imag- 
ine the whole planetary system, with attending satellites, forming 
anew their orbits and revolving around the solitary pool in which 
no star-dust can be seen, smooth and imperturbable and as fathom- 
less as the infinite ocean of ether into which no plummet line has 
ever been cast. 

The two head branches of The Big Gully, known as the Town- 
send and Benedict, unite a few rods above where Gage's saw-mill 
stood. A few steps below The Forks, as it is called, is a serriated 
precipice, somewhat broken, over the entire descent of which rushed 
a roaring cataract or a turbid Niagara of rapids during the preval- 
ence of great freshets, or when the snows of winter vanished with a 
heavy rain. 

At the point of the intersecting streams, or Forks, is a beautiful 
table of rocks lifted just above the reach of ordinary freshets. The 
rocky table is overlaid with a rich and deep bed of moss. Nature 
never provided a more luxuriant or inviting bed of repose than this 
embowered little promontory of moss in the woods, open to the sun- 
shine like a vista of paradise upon the southern and eastern sides, 
yet gently folded in the arms of enchantment by the evergreen boughs 
of the hemlocks upon the northern and western borders. This is 
the beautiful feature of The Forks. Upon either side of this natural 
bower is the sylvan stream to invite day-dreams by its musical 



92 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

cadences and sonorous sonatas, while aU about are the ever inviting 
hemlocks in which the birds of summer voice their melodies. 

During the earliest recollections of the first settlers, distinct 
trails of the Aborigines remained through portions of the forests 
bordering The Big Gully. One of the plainest outlines of their for- 
est pathways led from the southeast in a gradual descent down along 
the south bank to The Forks. The same trail extended southeaster- 
ly, passing over the spot where the stone school house of district 
number 7 is located; thence southeasterly to the Indian village 
near the Sand Bar on the west side of the North Branch of Lake 
Keuka. Another Indian trail was visible, in the very early pioneer 
days, along the south side of the Townsend branch from near the 
headwaters to a natural cove a little above the spot where the saw- 
mill of John and Cyrenus Townsend was erected. Another trail led 
from the north across the stream to this cove. At this intersection 
of forest paths was an inviting plot of level ground in a well shelt- 
ered nook, where, during countless moons of time the Indians used 
to get together to boil maple sap till it was exceedingly sweet to 
their taste; and here they held high carnival for days and nights 
together in the thawy period of early spring-time, before the buds 
started on the sugar maple trees. They pitched their wigwams on 
this little plateau of the bed of the stream, feasted on venison and 
other game of the forests, danced, and shaped their bows and arrows 
for their hunting expeditions. 

Here, also, some of the skilled of the pre-historic potters came 
and pitched their tents in summer to work in the clay of superior 
quality in the bed of the stream a few steps east of their encamp- 
ment. Out of this most excellent bed of clay — than which there is 
none like it in this region of the State — the potters of primeval 
times formed calumets, kettles, and various other of the ancient arti- 
cles of earthenware. Broken fragments of their handiwork in 
burned clay have been found at various points easterly along the 
course of the stream and adjacent localities. Southwesterly along 
the banks of another stream, flowing in an opposite direction from 
this branch, of The Big Gully, known as Five Mile Creek, that has 
one of its headwaters upon the same water-shed as the Townsend 
branch of The Big Gully, and which flows into the Cohocton River, 
have been found remnants of this ancient pottery. Fragments of 
the ancient pottery made from this bed of clay in The Big Gully, the 
writer has been privileged to examine in the Smithsonian Institution 
at Washington. 

The water coursing through this gorge has undoubtedly worn 
its way from the surface to its present depth since the glacial per- 
iod. While the Gu-ya-no-ga Valley was a lake that extended about 
two miles westward up the West Hill range, as evident by a shore 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 93 

line still plainly visible here and there along the hillside where the 
earth has never been changed by any attempt at cultivation, and 
about the same distance up the East Hill range, The Big Gully was 
plainly a water-course formed as the glacial lake receded to the south 
and east, thereby uncovering its valley bed which existed when its 
outlet flowed northward. When the southward recession took place 
after the northern outlet was dammed up, an outlet was channeled 
through between what is now the southern base of the East Hill 
slope and the northern one of Bluff Point, leaving that promontory 
an island, while the southern head of the lake became an outlet into 
the Chemung River. When the final outlet was forced from the foot 
of Lake Keuka through the shale rocks to Seneca Lake, the waters 
so far subsided that the circle of waters between East Hill and Bluff 
Point occupied a slight elevation above the present lake level, and 
gradually vanished. As indicating this analogy that Bluff Point was 
once an island, the writer has found fresh water shells as well as 
pebbles at various points along this depression. 

That these changes took place before man appeared is too evi- 
dent to require elucidation. The surface of the earth was in the 
throes of a rock-grinding, centuries-moving ice cap a mile or more 
in thickness. During this vast lapse of time succeeding the glacial 
recession, unwritten upon the rocks or in the layers of soil, The Big 
Gully was coursing down the hillside into the valley of the former 
lake. 

From careful estimates by eminent scientists as to the action of 
a stream of water upon the rocks over which it flows, it is safely 
within the limits of probability to reckon the age of The Big Gully 
as more than ten thousand years from its inception to the present 
time. Watkins Glen, a lesser average stream than The Big Gully, 
though maintaining a steadier water-flow, owing to the many springs 
that supply it, was visited by Prof. Louis Agassiz, one of the great- 
est geologists of any time. He read the chronological tables of the 
rocks and calculated their wearing away under the action of the 
stream, from the summit of the cliffs to the present bed of the 
water course, and unhesitatingly declared, after full investigation and 
deliberate calculation, that here was unmistakable evidence of the 
work of more than twenty thousand years. 

The bed of The Big Gully is a prolific source of gratification to 
the botanist. From its extended water-shed the seeds and roots of 
many rare plants are conveyed to its capacious depths. The late 
Dr. Samuel H. Wright, an eminent botanist as well as a general all- 
around scientist, stated to the writer some years ago that The Big 
Gully afforded him the finest and most desirable field work he had 
found in many a year. 



94 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

Some of the most beautiful scenes mortal eyes ever beheld abound 
at varying intervals all along this enchanting stream. Continually di- 
versified scenery surprises the explorer of its cool rocky defiles. 
There are resounding galleries, slumbrous caverns, echoing grottos, 
gorgeous chambers, craggy castles, ideal retreats, shady bowers, re- 
freshing ripples, balmy banks, solacing shadows, miniature wilder- 
nesses, and a perpetual profusion of wild grandeur and subdued 
beauty beyond expression, portraying every mood and tense of 
Nature. 

VARIOUS NOTES. 

Captain William Thrall was a very early settler in Jerusalem. 
He purchased land on the Green Tract and set out an orchard where 
he lived, bringing the trees from Benton. The orchard is still stand- 
ing. It was for many years the Cyrenus Townsend place. Captain 
Thrall was a Revolutionary soldier in command of a company during 
the Colonial struggle for independence. He was buried on the place 
where he lived, the spot being in the orchard. Nothing marks the 
place of his burial. 

Daniel Brown was one of the first settlers, and it was said by 
some of the original pioneers that his log house was the first build- 
ing in the township. 

As lata as 1810 the township of Jerusalem contained only 450 
inhabitants, exclusive of Bluff Point. 

Solomon Ingraham cut the first tree on the Friend place. 

Daniel Lynn was one of the early pioneers. He lived near the 
entrance to the Harris Cole Gully. 

The Captain Benjamin Stoddard house was destroyed by fire on 
Thursday night, March 1, 1900. It was one of the landmarks on the 
Green Tract. A great snow storm prevailed all the night before and 
the day previous to the fire. The snow was about three feet deep 
on a level when the house burned. The barn which was destroyed 
by fire some years previous, was the first frame barn erected oj 
the Green Tract. 

Since the chapter on Early Settlers was printed, the writer Is 
informed by Mrs S. E. Long that a direct descendant of the line of 
Townsends therein alluded to, is a resident of Jerusalem, to wit: 
Mrs. Mary Johnson Roselle, who is a daughter of the late Emma 
Townsend Johnson, of Penn Yan, and resides in the north part of the 
township. Mrs. Long is a relative of the Townsends referred to. 
Her grandfather, Ashabel Beers, came from Connecticut in 1809, and 
in 1816 settled near Kinney's Corners and some years later on the 
farm in Jerusalem where he resided till his death in 1865, aged 81 
years. His first wife was Elizabeth Townsend, daughter of Uriah 
Townsend. He erected one of the first frame houses in that part of 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 95 

Jerusalem, which attracted much attention. Upon this place which 
•was afterward the home of his son, Major Ashabel Beers, have been 
found many relics of stone handiwork at various times, on the part 
of Todd Beers, his son, who has made a collection of them. Thtie 
was also a "deer lick" on the place, where Indians probably came to 
lie in wait for their game. 

Jonathan Davis transported the flour of two bushels of wheat 65 
miles from Athens, Pennsylvania, to the Friend's settlement on the 
west shore of Seneca Lake, except about twenty miles of the dis- 
tance conveyed over Seneca Lake. Otherwise, he carried it all the 
way. 

Peter M. Dinehart built the store in Sherman's Hollow in 1S83. 
He was postmaster at Friend eleven years. 

Bar Bay is the name given by Dr. James C. Wightman to the 
portion of Lake Keuka west of the Sand Bar, and separated by it 
from the main body of the lake, at Branchport. 

Hyra Chase was an early settler who built and occupied a leg 
house at the forks of the roads a short distance west of the stone 
school house on West Hill. It was afterward occupied by Adam 
Shutts and family. 

George Johnson, who came to Jerusalem in May, 1849, with his 
father, Daniel Johnson, did a large commission business in Branch- 
port several years. He bought everything the farmers had to sell. 
He was a great cattle buyer and drover. He drove herds all the 
way on foot to New York, 450 miles, requiring from 30 to 60 days 
to go through. One season he had 244 head in one drove. 

The only stationary saw-mill now existing in Jerusalem is that 
of William A. Kennedy, at Branchport. At this mill logs are sawed 
into lumber. Grape basket material is made in large quantities. 
There is also a planing machine and other appliances for general 
custom work. 

As shown by a map of Ontario and Yates Counties in 1829, Jeru- 
salem had one grist mill, eight saw-mills, one distillery, and one 
ashery. 

Isaac Adams came to Jerusalem from Westchester County in 
1839. Pedrick built the saw-mill for him. In 1860 he put up a grist 
mill which was burned down about eight or nine years afterward. 

George Heck came to Bluff Point about 1830. He was the 
earliest of the Hecks in Jerusalem. 

Jerusalem has had a veritable human antiquity. It seems at 
first thought that the mode of living by the first known people of 
earth long since existed only in ethnological works. But a primitive 
instance is within the memory of some who are living who saw and 
knew an actual cave-dweller. Mrs. Jane Hall lived quite a long 
time in a rocky cave a short distance east of the "Shanty Plains" 



96 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

school house. She had a bed in it, cooked her food, ate and slept 
there, alone. The cave-room was about as high as the ordinary 
room of the pioneer log house. 

Seth and Ephraim Jones were early settlers in Branchport, 
They conducted a cooper shop which afterward became the resi- 
dence of Charles Stebbins. Eph. Jones was a poetical wag whose 
keen local satires are still remembered by some. 

Richard Hawley and John Conley conducted a potash factory in 
Branchport in the early days of the village. 

There may properly be considered four villages in Jerusalem: 
Branchport, Kinney's Comers, Keuka Park, and Sherman's Hollow, 
of which the first named is the largest and most important as it is 
the most advantageous to the larger number of people within the 
limits of the township. Branchport is favorably located for a vil- 
lage of much larger size and importance. 

Spafford's Gazetteer of the State, published in 1824, says: 

"Jerusalem, a township, is about six miles square, exclusive of 
the tract between the arms of Crooked Lake, which extends south 
near six miles. Bluff Point, this singular peninsula, deserves men- 
tion as a curiosity. The land of Jerusalem is tossed into waving 
hillocks, principally a pretty stiff argillaceous loam, crowned with 
handsome summits of arable land, between which are beautiful 
vales of good extent. The scenery is wild and romantic. In the 
northwest there is a small inlet into the arm of the Crooked Lake, 
on which there is a grist mill and six saw-mills. Population of the 
township, 1,610; 383 farmers; 29 mechanics; five free blacks; no 
slaves; taxable property, $115,065; electors, 329; 6,814 acres of im- 
proved land; 1,705 cattle; 273 horses; 4,025 sheep; 9,810 yards of 
cloth made in families in 1821." 

In 1900 there were seventeen log houses in Jerusalem, to wit: 
Two on the Samuel Davis place, now owned by his great grand- 
son, Guy M. Davis; one on the Joseph Cogswell place, now owned 
by Stanley Squires; one on the Ranthus C. Timmerman place; one 
on the former Rowland Hemphill place, the only one then on Bluff 
Point; one on the Robert Comstock place, near the residence of 
Chester C. Culver; one on the Martin Henshaw place; one where 
David Hughes lived at the south summit of the Sherman's Hollow 
hill; one on the Herries place, south of Darby's Corners; one on 
the Leonard Stever place; one on the Thomas Bordwell place, both 
in Guyanoga Valley; one on the former Amasa French place, west of the 
white school house, now owned and occupied by James Potts; one on 
the former John Race place in the east part of the township; one on 
the former James Way place; one opposite the George Crofoot 
place; one on the Hanford Perry estate; and one on the James 
Wilcox place, now owned by Henry McLoud. Eight of these houses 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 97 

were occupied as dwellings, that year— 1900. It is worthy of note 
that the log house of James Potts when erected had a loop-hole a 
few inches square on the south side, high enough to peer through 
and aim fire-arms. It is thought this was designed for a look-out 
lor hostile Indians and wild beasts and through which to open fire 
on either. As the Big Marsh was a natural rendezvous for wild 
animals in early settlement days, it seems quite probable that this 
orifice on that side of the habitation was designed to give the set- 
tler a rifle range on the four footed enemies. Few of these memor- 
ials of the brave pioneers remain, and only two of them were occu- 
ped in 1908. 

George Brown built the first grist-mill in Jerusalem about 1812. 
The Friend's saw-mill was built in 1797. 

Richard Smith, of the Friend's Society, built the first saw-mill 
where David W. Smith's was afterward erected. 

The first steam grist-mill at Branchport was close by the lake 
shore, and was erected by Peter H. Bitley in 1847. 

Sabintown was the name given to an early settlement, about 
1798, on East Hill, in and about the section near where the school 
house is located, west of the Ezekiel Clark place. The first resi- 
dents were Asa and Burtch Sabin and their nephew, Hiram Sabin, 
with their families. Other early settlers thereabouts were Gideon 
Burtch, Braman Burtch, and Hezekiah Dayton. 

Jerusalem had 152 soldiers in the War for the Union, of whom 
thirty-three died in service. 

The road extending past the John Ingraham place and stone 
school house, was one of the earliest in the township, existing as 
early as 1803. In the following year the road was laid out from John 
Ingraham's southwesterly to Italy — then known as Middletown. 

No distillery was ever erected on the Friend's Tract. Daniel 
Brown, jr., had a distillery on East Hill where the late Cyrenus 
Townsend resided. Giles Kinney had a distillery at Kinney's Cor- 
ners, and there was one at Branchport where Edward Rynders re- 
sides. There were at least three others in Jerusalem of which the 
writer has too indefinite information to make a statement. 

Kashong, referred to elsewhere in this work, was on a farm 
owned some time ago by W. W. Coe. It is close at or on the 
Ontario County line. A detachment of 400 men were sent there by 
General Sullivan in September, 1779, to destroy the Indian village 
known as Gotheseunquean. The diary of Capt. Fowler, of the expe- 
dition, mentions it as Kashanquash, which is certainly reliable. 

Originally, Jerusalem was formed as a township in 1803. Jemi- 
ma Wilkinson gave all this region the name of New Jerusalem, 
which as then recognized upon its general organization in 1789 in- 



98 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

eluded Benton, Milo, and Torrey within its somewhat indefinite 
boundaries. In 1791 a bush house was put up and a clearing begun 
by members of the Friend's Society, in Guyanoga Valley, on lands 
now owned by James G. Alexander. Here the Friend and her society 
first settled in Jerusalem. The Friend established her residence 
there in 1794. 

Daniel Guernsey surveyed this township in 1790, with compass 
and chain, when it was all a dense wilderness. Stafford C. Cleve- 
land's "History of Yates County" says: 

"Forty-seven years thereafter, when he was 77 years old, his 
deposition was taken,' at Monroe, Indiana, with regard to this survey, 
to be used as evidence in a suit involving the title to lot 9, wherein 
Rachel Malin and David B. Prosser were plaintiffs, and Joseph 
Ketchum was defendant. Mr. Guernsey stated in his deposition 
that he and Noah Richards made a contract in March, 1790, with 
Benedict Robinson, for the survey in question, and that the work was 
begun June 30th. Abram Burdick and Nathan Burdick, his son, as- 
sisted me as chainmen, and Benedict Robinson and Thomas Hatha- 
way accompanied us four days in traversing and establishing the 
exterior lines of the township. Benedict Robinson erected a cabin 
near the lake and employed Nicholas Briggs, Seth Jones, Peter 
Robinson, Jabez Brown, and a negro boy named Zip, to assist in sur- 
veying and clearing a lot for improvement. Here we all resided and 
were supplied with victuals, and directions both as to surveying and 
clearing, by Benedict Robinson, who resided with us, except when 
he was called abroad on business, till about the 20th of September. 
During this time Thomas Hathaway visited us but seldom." 

According to the census of 1910 the population of Jerusalem was 
2,444. 

There axe about 150 miles of public highways in Jerusalem. 

Darwin Shattuck, a native and life-long citizen of Jerusalem, 
was the inventor of the clover seed huller. 

In the days of the Crooked Lake Canal, when grain and other 
products were shipped from Branchport on canal boats, there were 
eight stores in the village, each doing considerable business, be- 
sides a foundry, tannery, cabinet and cooper shop, and three boot 
and shoe establishments, a tailor shop, and other industries. 

The Raymond place on East Hill, now owned and occupied by 
Benjamin Franklin Raymond, has been in possession of one of the 
Raymond families for a full century of time. The original owner 
was generally known as Deacon Raymond, who made the first clear- 
ings and was a sturdy pioneer. The present occupants, Mr. and 
Mrs. Raymond, enjoy the esteem of a large circle of friends. 

Clarence F. Stone and Verdi Burtch have made a special 
atudy of birds — their life, habits, migrations, nesting, songs, plumage, 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 99 

and other interesting phases of our feathered friends— and each have 
contributed articles to various publications devoted to ornithology, 
in which commendable and gratifying division of knowledge they 
have attained a reputation justly and deservedly earned through 
years of devoted study and observation. 

Not long ago the church history of Jerusalem was prepared and 
given quite fully by the writer in the Yates County Chronicle. For 
this reason it does not appear in this work, as it was so recently 
published that those who cared to save it had it as complete as it 
could be developed. 

Charles F. Randall, whose home is romantically situated upon the 
northern bank of the picturesque gorge in the great West Hill 
range, has taken some very fine views of this wonderful glen known 
as The Big Gully. He has photographed and developed other local 
scenes which merit wider recognition than they have received. The 
writer of this work takes special pleasure in acknowledging his ap- 
preciation of the views in The Big Gully which are engraved from 
photographs by Mr. Randall and reproduced in this volume. Mr. 
Randall is a natural artist, as well as one by education and experi- 
ence. He executes some very excellent work which would attract 
attention if introduced among people anywhere who loved the beau- 
ties of Nature or works of art. With the unassuming characteris- 
tics of a true gentleman, with becoming modesty about his capabil- 
ities or accomplishments, Mr. Randall's skill and knowledge of one 
of the finest arts known to man does not meet with the extended 
recognition his work merits. He is gifted with a versatility of facul- 
ties and is a genius in floriculture and a variety of handicraft. 

Swimming across Lake Keuka is considered a notable feat for 
a good swimmer. It is an endurance test to which many acquatic 
experts are unequal. That a young lady should succeed in so doing, 
is quite extraordinary. Yet, Miss Helen Stark, daughter of the late 
Martin C. Stark, of Penn Yan, swam across Lake Keuka from 
Coryell's Point, about four miles south of Branchport, on the west 
side of the North Branch to Bluff Point, one day in the summer of 
1889, as near as can be recalled. She was then only ten years ot 
age ' A few years later she swam from Purdy's to the old Ark, near 
Penn Yan, a considerably longer distance than across the lake. 
Her sister, Miss Flora Stark, swam across the lake from Ogoyago 
about 1896, and some years later she swam across from Ogoyago to 
Central Point. The late Martin C Stark was an excellent swimmer 
and early taught his children this praiseworthy accomplishment. 
The writer has been informed that Miss Florence Wheeler, of Ham- 
mondsport, at one time swam across the lake. 



100 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 



RETROSPECTIVE. 

No one whose life began after the log houses of the pioneers be- 
came a thing of the past can but vaguely comprehend the hardships 
and privations endured by the original settlers. Incessant toil and 
self-denial of many of the naturally prime comforts of existence was 
the common lot. Even necessities were often beyond attainment. 

Log houses were synonymous with and suggestive of frugal liv- 
ing, plainest of food, crude husbandry, simplest devices along with 
hard labor and such meager possibilities of enjoyment as the unsub- 
dued soil wrested from the primal forests afforded. 

The building of the log house was the first essential of pioneer 
life. The logs were cut the required length for sides and ends and 
hauled by oxen to the spot for the house. The neighbors came, 
sometimes long distances, to help put up the log abode for the set- 
tler, each with an ox team, or if too poor to own one, with an ax to 
help at the raising of the cabin. It was a "bee" at which all took 
a hand cheerfully and with good neighborly spirit. When sufficient 
logs were hauled together, a man was stationed at each corner with 
an ax in hand to notch the logs to fit each other, side and end, after 
they were rolled up on skids to position. Generally, the rafters which 
were hewn beforehand, were placed on the sides of the top layer of 
logs and pinned with hard wood pins a plump inch in diameter to 
fit the holes made at the top and bottom with an auger. Thus the 
raising was completed and the settler could then put on his shingle 
roof and the habitation was enclosed. 

The fire-place was usually made by laying smooth flat stones close 
together for the bottom of the chimney which was built up of stones 
well mudded together and projecting above the roof. The hearth of 
the fire-place was formed by the extension of smooth, flat stones at 
the base of the chimney even with the floor of the house. The 
fire-place was equipped with a simple iron crane fastened into one 
side of the chimney upon which to hang kettles for boiling meats 
and vegetables, and two andirons upon which to place the forestick 
and backlog so as to give an air draft under the fire. The* chinking 
wood of smaller and generally dry fagots was placed between to ac- 
celerate the fire which when well under way was fed with branches of 
green wood. The fire-place wouM usually admit of fuel three or four 
feet in length. 

In those days matches were unknown, and the only means of ob- 
taining a fire was by striking flint stones together, the sparks 
thus generating and dropping into tinder beneath and resulting in a 
small blaze. This was sometimes a slow and tedious mockery when 
the tinder was not in proper inflammable condition. It was therefore 
important to cover up with ashes the remaining coals in the fire-place 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 101 

at night for starting fire the following day. Otherwise a long trip had 
to be made through the cold and snow, in winter, to some distant 
habitation in the forest to borrow fire from a more fortunate settler. 
Some pioneers did not possess the flint process of original fire. 

As may be imagined, the fire-place was the natural dispenser of com- 
fort and cheer to the household. It was the solace after the labors of 
the day. There was something cheery in its flames of light and 
warmth radiating about the room as they forked out and continually 
pointed up the chimney gorge. Around the fire-place clustered 
the family associations. The earth in its shadow of nightly turn from 
the sun afforded the opportunity for musing and indulging in such 
pastimes as could be devised. Perchance some neighbor called to 
while away an evening in visiting, exchanging stories and experiences. 
There was consolation to the men in smoking the pipe of peace, and 
sometimes the good housewife participated in its solace. The pipe 
was lighted with a brand from the glowing fire or a live coal from the 
bed of embers. 

Those were the days of genuine buckwheat Cakes, after the pioneer 
had sufficient clearings upon which to grow the delicious pancake 
material. The good housewife neatly browned the cakes on a griddle 
hung over the fire, and as each one was baked it was buttered and 
covered, the next one placed on top and likewise buttered, and so on 
till a stack was built up sufficient for the family repast, all nicely 
warm and buttered through. They were a delicious feast. 

No kerosene lamps lighted the early log cabins. The first light 
was an extended rag in a saucer or dish of grease, lighted at the end 
over the edge of the dish. This crude method of illumination was 
superseded by dipped candles, the simple process of making these 
being familiar to many yet. 

Menj made flails with which they threshed out by hand whatever 
grain was grown. This was usually one of the winter occupations. 
No threshing machine was yet invented, and the first only crudely 
pelted out the grain and did not separate it from the chaff or straw. 
Later, the separator w^as invented, crude at first, merely separating 
the straw from the grain and chaff. It was later improved to separ- 
ate both straw and chaff from the grain. The first settlers had no 
means of cleaning grain except to take a shovel and dip up the grain 
and slowly let it sift down so that the wind would winnow out the 
chaff and dust. 

Aa cellars could not be placed under the log houses, the settlers 
buried their potatoes and vegetables, and apples if they 
were fortunate enough to have any. They made mounds of straw 
and earth over them so that a hole could be opened during the winter 
to take out some for use and then firmly plugging the hole with straw. 
They seldom lost any products by freezing that were thus stored. 

While the country was new and few could have any hay for their 



102 HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 

stock, Samuel Davis related that some of the early settlers went 
over to the Big Marsh in the south-western part of Jerusalem and 
cut and hauled home, with their oxen several loads of wild marsh grass. 
They considered themselves very fortunate when they could obtain it. 

The clearing of the land and getting it in condition to shovel plow 
was the hardest and longest struggle of the settler. After chopping 
over a piece of ground it was the custom to make a logging "bee" to 
which every man for quite a distance around would turn out with oxen 
and chains and see which could make the biggest haul to the heap to 
be burned. Think of the intrinsic value of the timber thus wasted. 
The settlers were anxious only to get at the soil. After the fallow 
was cleared and burned, a vast amount of work was ahead in picking 
up and burning the scattered fragments. Then came the shovel plow- 
ing between the stumps, "rooting," and agitating so much of the soil 
as the crude butterfly drag could reach. Thereafter the sowing of the 
winter wheat broadcast, and the following summer gathering it with 
hand sickle, an acre a day being considered a good day's work. 
Threshing it out was performed with hand made flails on the out-door 
threshing floor before barns were constructed. 

In the pioneer days the housewife usually had a hand loom in 
which she wove the cloth for the clothing of every member of the 
household. The wool as it came from the bodies of the sheep was 
carded with a pair of hand cards, a simple contrivance of small wires, 
all even length, fastened into a flat and small piece of wood to which 
a handle was attached, there being two of them, resembling a right 
and left handed pair of curry combs. With these the housewife 
worked the wool into rolls. The rolls were spun Into yarn on the 
spinning wheel. The yarn was then woven into cloth on the hand 
loom, a tedious process, thread by thread carried by the shuttle be- 
tween the upright strands, and as finished the cloth was rolled up oi^ 
a wooden cylinder, with a catch attached to keep the whole process 
taut. 

Cradles and trundle beds for children and most other articles of 
furniture were made by the ingenious settler. 

Some of the early settlers were expert wood-choppers. The wood- 
chopper who could not cut and put up two cords of four foot wood in 
a day was considered a slow workman. The rate usually paid for 
cutting and putting up a cord of four foot wood in those days was 
twenty-flve cents a cord, the chopper to board himself. 

How, those good old fire-places with their enormous combustible 
capacities, served the three-fold requirements of the settlers — lighting, 
heating, and cooking — their glowing embers radiating through the 
picturing imaginations of the succeeding generation! 

Anything like a fully adequate description of the conditions and 
circumstances of the original pioneer would fill a volume. It is only 
aimed herein to allude to some features of those times when men were 



HISTORY OF JERUSALEM 103 

of necessity more xieighborly and obliging than after many of them 
became to a degree financially independent. 

This was the transition period between the wilderness and 
civilization. Between the bark shanty or log house of the wood- 
chopper and the comparatively palatial residence of the machinery- 
equipped tiller of the clear fields of today. 

Men or women in rural communities no longer manufacture wear- 
ing apparel. Matches and kerosene oil lamps are in universal use. 
Cookery upon stoves is reduced to easy accomplishment. Much of 
the burden of farm labor is shifted to horses attached to machinery. 
Labor-saving appliaoices are all along the line of human endeavor. 
Market facilities are multiplied. Hours of labor formerly from sun- 
rise to sundown, are reduced to ten hours, while the laborer for others 
gets about double the pay of half a century ago. 

Neither any prescience or mental penetration of the wisest 
seer can see beyond the veil perpetually obscuring the future and re- 
veal to any generation what shall be unfolded with any lapse of time. 
It is given to man to know only of the present and whatever he can 
find in the records of the past. If these bear their full measure to his 
mind he can calmly and philosophically approach the unknown as o|n:e 
gazing for the first time upon the apparent meeting of the boundless 
blue ocean and sky at the farthest limit of mortal vision. 



INDEX. 



ARTICLE. PAGE. 

Evidences of Pre-Historic People 4 

Indian Occupation 10 

Preceding the Settlements 14 

Early Settlers 15 

Geological Outlines 22 

Indian Villages and Trails 29 

Foot of Lake Keuka — Indian Village 33 

Topographical Features 35 

Red Jacket 37 

Township Organization — Tracts of Land 41 

Township Lots 44 

Recession of Lake Keuka 45 

Early Industries and Villages 46 

Pioneer Incidents and Events 49 

The Gage Saw Mill 51 

Pioneer Recollections of the Green Tract 54 

Lake Keuka 55 

Post Offices 60 

The Plank Road 61 

First Railway in Jerusalem 62 

County Poor House and Farm 63 

Valuation, Equalization, Taxation 64 

Springs 65 

Streams 66 

Saw Mills 69 

Schools 72 

Kinney's Corners 74 

A Transfer 77 

Coates Kinney 78 

Gu-ya-no-ga 79 

Altitudes 84 

An Early Deed 86 

Writers 87 

The Big Gully 89 

Various Notes 94 

Retrospective 100 



DEC 6 1912 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 109 257 1 * 



